Summary

The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) allows practices to exception-report (exclude) specific patients from data collected to calculate achievement scores.

Patients can be exception-reported from individual indicators if, for example, they do not attend appointments or where the treatment is judged to be inappropriate by the GP (such as medication cannot be prescribed due to side-effects).

The General Medical Services contract sets out the criteria which allow practices to participate in QOF but not to be penalised where exception reporting occurs.

Patient exception reporting applies to those indicators in the clinical domain of the QOF where level of achievement is determined by the percentage of patients receiving the designated level of care. The information presented here refers to exception reporting for indicators with the ‘clinical domain' of the QOF.

For background information on QOF exception reporting, and for notes on the way exception reporting rates are calculated, see the detailed notes in the statistical bulletin in QOF exception reporting.

Key facts

Exception reporting rates reflect the percentage of patients who are not included when determining Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) achievement. Exception rates were generally lower in 2008/09 than in previous years. The overall effective exception rate, across all clinical indicators, for England was 4.87 per cent (5.26 per cent in 2007/08).

There is variation between indicators. As in previous years the exception rate for indicators that measure an outcome (6.88 per cent) was higher than for indicators that measure a process (1.70 per cent)