GPs admin woes continue in new Capita pensions portal

Primary Care Support England, which provides support services to GPs, dentists, opticians and pharmacists and is operated by Capita, launched a new online GP pensions and payments service on June 1.

The system allows practices and GPs to access a range of new services to help manage their payments and pensions administration, for example viewing statements and submitting information such as end-of-year certificates and self-assessment forms.

Despite payment runs being processed successfully through the new system, PCSE stated that “as with any major launch of a new software system there have been some issues”, including missing pension deductions, late payments for some practices and missing descriptions for migrated statements.

As first reported by GP publication Pulse, in a letter outlining how it is tackling the wide-ranging problems, Emily Lawson, NHS England chief commercial officer, said PCSE was "actively working on a fix’’ to the litany of issues.

The letter, published at the end June, also referred to quality and outcomes framework payments (which are voluntary annual reward and incentive programmes for GP practices) not being made to some practices last month on June 15, but said further payment runs were made on June 28 and 30 “to ensure the contractual agreements were met”. 

There were also issues with payment statements where the global sum value was shown as zero, even though it had been paid. However, PCSE advised that this issue has now been resolved. 

The letter also stated that some pensions data was not being displayed as expected, due to a defect where certain items had not been linked in the new system, which PCSE was aware of and was investigating.

PCSE recognises new portal is a ‘complex system’

In the letter, Lawson also stated there had been some successes such as since June 1, “the new system has successfully processed over 187,000 payment lines — a total of £970m”.

She said: "We recognise that this was a complex system replacement and despite extensive testing and assurances it was always possible that some technical issues would only become apparent after go-live.’’

Lawson also noted that Capita’s progress with the new system was being monitored “through several forums, some of which attended by the British Medical Association”.

The letter was issued in response to queries from the BMA and the Institute of General Practice Management, which demanded “urgent action to ensure that GPs and practices can use the system as intended”.

Dr Ian Hume, BMA’ GP committee member, told Pensions Expert that while "teething problems" were expected with any new system, “the myriad of issues we’re aware of far exceed this description”. 

He said: “These include a variety of missed payments to practices, as well as duplicated pension deductions, or deductions for GPs who have departed the practice or never worked there at all.

“While PCSE tells us that these issues are gradually being resolved, we understand that they’re causing confusion for practices and creating additional extra workload at a time when staff are stretched to their limits and should be using their time to care for patients rather than being weighed down by admin and bureaucracy.”

A Capita spokesperson said: “The online GP pensions and payment service provides GPs and practice staff with greater convenience, more transparency, and security in their payment and pension services.

"We want to encourage anyone who has any queries about the service, or if they are experiencing an issue, to contact us directly so we can help them resolve it.”

Long-running saga

Doctors' issues with the administration of the NHS Pension Scheme have been going on for several years.

In October 2020, Pensions Expert highlighted a series of issues reported by BMA, including processing errors leading to incorrect allocations and records of contributions, locum GP pension payments not being made on time and employer contributions being deducted for staff that had already left.

There has also been a campaign running since September 2017, led by GP Survival, aimed at highlighting the mishandling of GP’s pensions contributions after Capita was awarded its contract in 2015.

Pulse reported in March 2021 that NHS England has now paid out almost £35,000 in compensation to GPs for mishandling their pensions, with at least 35 GPs each being given an average of £1,000 after PCSE failed in its management of their pension information.