GP practices to receive extra £10 Covid vaccination payment for home visits

NHS England has announced an extra £10 supplementary payment for each home visit to vaccinate housebound patients, backdated to all visits from mid-December onwards. Read our summary below.

What is the payment?

Practice PCN groupings will be paid the £10 supplement for each home visit, on top of the £12.58 item of service fee for each dose of vaccine. However, where more than one person is vaccinated during the same home visit the PCN group will only be able to claim the one-off £10 payment.

A letter to practices from NHS England sent on Monday outlined the criteria for payment and explained that it will be backdated to cover all visits to deliver vaccination in patients’ homes since 14 December.

It stated that NHS England is providing:

• An additional supplement of £10 per visit to a housebound patient in order to administer the COVID-19 vaccinations. This supplement is on top of the £12.58 Item of Service fee. If a PCN grouping or community pharmacy contractor administers vaccinations to a housebound patient at the same time as vaccinating other members of the household who are currently eligible for vaccination, only one £10 supplement per visit can be claimed.

• The £10 supplement applies retrospectively to any first dose vaccinations that have taken place since 14 December 2020 in line with the above criteria, and will also apply to second dose vaccinations that take place in line with these arrangements.

Payment process

The Pinnacle system is to be updated to allow staff to record when patients are being vaccinated at home to trigger the additional payments.

However, vaccinations that have already been administered already being processed so further guidance will be provided on how to make retrospective claims.

The letter stated: ‘We will update the Pinnacle/Outcomes4Health Point of Care System to include additional fields relating to the collection of data to support payment of the £10 residential settings supplement.

‘This process would not apply retrospectively to vaccinations delivered in residential settings in December and January as those payments are currently being processed.

‘We will provide further detail in due course on the timeframe for these changes to the Outcomes4Health Point of Care system, and on how a supplement for retrospective vaccinations in residential settings should be claimed.

‘In the meantime, sites should maintain clear records of all vaccinations undertaken for the housebound or within another care home/residential setting to support claims for the additional supplement and ensure these vaccinations are recorded on the Outcomes4Health Point of Care system as normal.’

How to claim

NHS England said guidance on how PCN groups should submit claims will be published ‘shortly’ on NHS Futures.

However it noted that practices would have to agree to a Post Payment Verification process and review of a sample of practice claims.

It added: ‘Further details on the claims process will be shared with CCGs and NHSE/I regions shortly.’

Source: NHS England. Coronavirus » Making the universal offer of vaccination to JCVI cohorts 1-4 ahead of February 15, and additional funding for vaccination of housebound patients (england.nhs.uk)