1. General Practitioner
  2. Quality improvement (QI) reports for GPs

Quality improvement (QI) reports for GPs

Confidential reports designed to help GPs improve the quality of care, with a focus on prescribing and patient safety, are available for practices that contribute to CPRD.

CPRD and the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) have developed confidential, bespoke drug prescribing reports for individual practices, available for free for GP practices contributing to CPRD.

The reports provide a pseudonymised list of patients at the practice so that GPs can re-identify and review their care. Reports also show the practice’s prescription rate benchmarked against other participating GP practices. Each report covers a selection of safety indicators and enables collection of evidence for annual appraisals under Domain 2 (Safety and Quality).

Unlike much of the performance measurement information that a practice receives, this report is for practice-use only and is not made available in the public domain.

Below you can view examples, created using sample data, for the following reports:

GPs are invited to take an active role in suggesting indicators for future reports.

Further information is available on the RCGP website, where you can view videos by Dr Scott Jamieson, RCGP Scotland Quality Improvement lead, providing an overview of the data reports and how they can be used by practices. On the NIHR website you can view a blog by Dr Tommy Hunter about how he has used a report at his own practice.

To receive the reports, practices must be contributing to CPRD. 

Quote from Dr, Scotland saying As well as helping me to improve patient care, the reports have given me useful evidence to use as part of my revalidationQuote from Dr J, South West Peninsula saying A helpful process for audit and patient careQuote from Dr S, Scotland saying Helpful to share with my colleagues Quote from Dr O, Kent, Surrey and Sussex saying It reiterates and updates good clinical practice


Prescribing of valproate to women of childbearing potential

The latest report is on prescribing of valproate to women of childbearing potential. 

Patient safety and prescribing in patients with a learning disability, autism or both

Managing the prescription of psychotropic medication for adults with learning disabilities, autism, or both in order to minimise potential negative impacts is a challenging process for primary care. In order to support GPs and primary care pharmacists with this, reports include the following indicators:

  • Long-term prescription of anti-psychotics to patients with learning disabilities, autism or both
  • Long-term prescription of anti-depressants to patients with learning disabilities, autism or both

These indicators are based on NHS England's Stopping Over-Medication of People with a Learning Disability, Autism or Both (STOMP) project, which aims to improve the quality of life of people with a learning disability, autism or both by reducing the potential harm of inappropriate psychotropic drugs.

For each of the indicators, the reports:

  • Show how the practice’s prescription rate compares with peers
  • Allow GPs to re-identify patients whose treatment may need review
  • Provide support material that summarises STOMP and NICE guidance

Heart and circulatory system reports 

The heart and circulatory system QI report includes three indicators taken from the RCGP patient safety toolkit and one that was suggested by NICE:

  • Prescription of glitazones to patients with heart failure
  • Prescription of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to patients with heart failure
  • Prescription of NSAIDs to patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD)
  • Aspirin monotherapy for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation

Below you can view an example report, created using sample data.

Further information

For more information about the new reports, contact the RCGP lead for this project, David Mullett at david.mullett@rcgp.org.uk.

Publication: 

[Page last reviewed 12 February 2020]