Primary Care Support England (PCSE), the contract delivered by Capita on behalf of NHS England, is addressing an issue relating to issuing invitation and reminder letters regarding cervical screening correspondence. Letters are being sent to all women who have experienced a delay in receiving cervical screening correspondence. Additionally, there has been an issue relating to issuing results letters.
All women aged between 25 and 64 are eligible for inclusion in the National Cervical Screening Programme, which involves screening most women for cervical disease every three or five years. As part of the contract with NHS England, PCSE supports the National Cervical Screening Programme by producing and sending invitation, reminder and results letters to eligible women.
For invitation and reminder letters, from January to June this year, approximately 43,200 women due to receive letters were sent an invitation letter or a reminder, but not both.
We are writing to the women who only received one letter to remind them to book an appointment and to apologise for the delay in sending a reminder letter. The scale of the screening programme should be borne in mind: approximately nine million letters are produced and sent each year to women in England.
For results letters, GPs are responsible for care, including contacting women who require further examination. GPs or screening clinics have the primary responsibility to notify women of their test result. PCSE additionally sends letters to women informing them of their screening result and these letters are not part of the referral process. A total of 4508 results letters have been delayed this year. Only a small proportion of these results required further examination, and they should all have been contacted directly by their GP.
The risk to women of this incident is low and there is no current evidence of harm, but Capita nevertheless apologises to both the NHS and to the women whose correspondence was delayed.
We have investigated the precise circumstances around this incident, and it is clear that the correct process for uploading, organising and checking datafiles was not properly followed. When the problem was discovered, it was not immediately escalated to senior leadership, or NHS England, by the individuals responsible. Capita is investigating the managerial handling of the matter and taking appropriate disciplinary action. Additionally, a senior executive responsible for this contract has already left Capita.
We have appointed an independent audit team, led by PwC, to carry out a detailed review into operational systems and processes in PCSE. We have upgraded checks in place at every stage of the process and offered NHS England additional resource as this issue was resolved.
Capita statement on cervical screening correspondence – update 11 December
Following the announcement last month about a delay in issuing cervical screening correspondence in 2018, Primary Care Support England (PCSE) has conducted a thorough review of correspondence prior to 2018.
As a result of that review it was established that 3,591 items of correspondence were not sent in 2017. As with the 2018 incident, the correct process for uploading, organising and checking datafiles was not properly followed. It should be borne in mind that more than nine million items of correspondence are sent each year.
Capita, which delivers the PCSE contract on behalf of NHS England, investigated the managerial handling of the matter and took appropriate disciplinary action. A senior executive responsible for the contract has left Capita.
The clinical panel convened in response to this incident says there is no current evidence of any harm having resulted from these issues.
All women affected, and their GPs, are being written to today (Dec 11) advising them on what they need to do. Only a small proportion were abnormal result letters, and the women affected all received a referral.
Capita apologises to the women affected by this administrative error.
About PCSE
On 1 September 2015, Capita plc took on responsibility for delivering NHS England’s primary care support service – now called Primary Care Support England (PCSE). PCSE supports NHS England in providing a modern, efficient, easy to use support service. This work supports GPs, dentists, opticians and pharmacists as well as those working in the teams around them.
Support provided includes: administering monthly contracts and reimbursements to GP, dentist and optician practices, medical records movement, NHS supplies, cervical screening administration support, patient registrations, payments administrations and management of entry and change notifications to the performers lists.
Capita expects to reach breakeven on the PCSE contract by the end of 2020, following the digitisation of ophthalmic payments and consolidation of IT systems for three services.
