The additional work undertaken by practice managers and administrative staff as a result of Capita’s overhaul of the patient records system last year will be compensated, NHS England has said.

Each practice will receive a £250 once-off payment a letter from NHS England director of commissioning, Rosamond Roughton revealed.

The director thanked practices for their ‘hard work, dedication, patience and support’ despite having to individually bag every record of patients moving practice and send them to Capita depots since April last year.

Some practices have complained that the system introduced by Capita costs too much time and instead inserted multiple patients’ records in each envelope.

The £250 will be paid in addition to the £266 average payment practices will receive as part of the 2017/18 contract agreement for costs associated with Capita’s patient records system.

Under the GP contract, £2m was given to the global sum to cover further changes being introduced by Capita, which will see practices having to barcode each record individually.

The added payment is ‘to contribute to additional costs already incurred’ since April 2016 and will be made before May 2017, the NHS England letter said.

Roughton said: ‘Accommodating these changes has fallen particularly on practice managers and practice administrative staff and we are grateful for the hard work, dedication, patience and support of practice staff as we work to implement the new system.

‘In recognition of this, and to contribute to the additional costs already incurred by GP practices since April 2016, NHS England has agreed with the GPC, to make a non-recurrent contribution to GP practices based on a standard rate of £250 per practice.’

GPC deputy chair Dr Richard Vautrey explained the payment ‘goes some way to recognise the significant problems most practice managers and other administrative staff have had to cope with over the last year as a result of the serious and repeated failings of the Capita managed PCSE [Primary Care Support England] service.’

An NHS England spokesperson said the additional payment would be ‘funded and paid centrally by NHS England’ in recognition of the changes which ‘may have had a workload impact over the course of the last year.’