Practices ‘locked out’ of CQRS

GP practices have been unable to enter ‘enhanced service’ information into the tool for calculating their payments after being left in the dark about password changes.

Numerous practices reportedly went to log-in to the Calculating Quality Reporting Service this month, only to find their passwords had expired.

The CQRS assesses GP practice achievement against the Quality and Outcomes Framework, directed enhanced services, and other clinical services.

Technical problems with a new service mean that practices have to manually enter data for some enhanced services until April.

A Health and Social Care Information Centre spokesperson apologised to users who have been “locked out” of the service as a result of the password change and therefore unable to manually enter their information.

“It is standard for passwords for services that contain sensitive information to expire after a certain period as a security measure – in this case it is 180 days,” a statement says.

“We are aware of this issue and are looking into changing the service to issue users with a reminder prompting them to change their passwords.

“In the meantime, we will be contacting GP practices through our communication channels to prompt them. If GP practices are having any other password related issues it is recommended that they contact the CQRS helpdesk.”

CQRS replaced the Quality Management and Analysis system in June last year. EHI reported in January 2012 that Vangent had won the six-year, £30m contract to develop the service.