The Once for London project

8 February 2012

Here is one example of an approach to list maintenance that has been done with full engagement with the GP community and representative groups.

The Once for London project

NHS London, through the Once for London project, has developed a set of operating principles for list maintenance. Approximately 70 primary care leaders have participated in this work to date with representatives from clusters, contractors, LMC, LDC, FHS organisations, clinicians, practice managers, public health, finance and contracting. Adoption of the principles should prevent list cleansing drives appearing targeted at any particular practice. The intention is to systematically work through patients alphabetically, but part of the approach is to first share the list of patients with practices to remove any patient that had had contact with the practice in the previous 15 months. This timeframe was chosen to align with QOF recall periods to minimise the possibility of any patient on a chronic disease register being removed in error. It is also more likely that a patient seen in the past 15 months will still be resident. The policy also allows for targeting groups such as over 65s with the flu campaign and multiple occupancies. The Once for London approach is available here.

Letter for Once for London approach
Model envelope
List maintenance