This page explains what the GMS Contract is, and how it links with CQRS.
What is the GMS Contract
The General Medical Services (GMS) contract is the national standard General Practice (GP) contract. The GP contract delivers a range of ‘core’ healthcare services as part of the NHS. It is negotiated every year between NHS England and the British Medical Association’s (BMA) England General Practitioners Committee (GPC England). [source NHS England]
NHS commissioners and Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) use the GMS contract to commission general practice services in a geographical area.
Other contract arrangements in England include Personal Medical Services (PMS) and Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS). Most contracts in England are GMS contracts. [source NHS England]
Read more about the GP contract.
The GMS Contract and CQRS
The Calculating Quality Reporting Service (CQRS) is an approval, reporting and payments system for GP practices. It helps practices to track, monitor and declare achievement for the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), DES, and Vaccination and Immunisation (V&I) programmes. [source NHS Digital]. Since 1 November 2020, CQRS has been managed by the NHS Commissioning Support Units.
CQRS National facilitates payments in support of GP contracts like the GMS contract and CQRS Local facilitates payments in support of Locally Enhanced Schemes (LES) and Local Incentive Schemes (LIS) which supplement core services offered by GP practices to meet local population needs and priorities, which are commissioned by Integrated Care Boards (ICBs).
