GP practices will have three months – instead of the current six – from 1 September to respond to FP69 patient address queries raised by Primary Care Support England (PCSE) before a patient is removed from the practice list.
The change was announced in PCSE’s July GP practice monthly update.
PCSE raises an FP69 flag on the Personal Demographics Service (PDS) when there is reason to believe a patient is no longer living at their registered address.
In line with NHS England guidance, an FP69 flag is triggered if a letter sent to a patient by PCSE is returned, or a screening administration service notifies PCSE of returned mail.
PCSE writes to patients as part of regular activities, such as list maintenance, new patient registrations, practice closures or mergers, among others.
When patient address queries raise a flag, the patient’s record is updated in the clinical system, and the practice must verify the patient’s address and update the practice system accordingly.
This involves contacting the patient to confirm whether they are still resident at the registered location or have moved. If the address is confirmed, the practice must update the patient’s record accordingly (see box) and notify PCSE via GP links, which then clears the FP69 flag.
From September, if confirmation is not received within three months of the patient address query flag being raised, the patient will be removed from the practice’s list.
The update also reminded practices about two common data quality risks that require urgent attention: duplicates and confusions on the PDS.
Both can pose a serious risk to patient health and safety, delay treatment and lead to potential data breaches and require investigation from PCSE to support the resolution.
A confusion is where two or more patients are mistakenly linked to the same NHS number on PDS, corrupting the patient’s demographic and clinical record. This can lead to incorrect treatment or medication being prescribed due to mixed patient information.
A duplicate is where one patient has two or more NHS numbers on the PDS, resulting in medical records being mixed between two medical envelopes / electronic records. This can mean healthcare providers not having access to the patient’s complete medical history.
PCSE has advised practices to report any suspected duplicates or confusions to them.
To resolve a FD69
When a FD69 is raised, a practice must contact the patient to confirm whether they are still resident at the registered location and update their clinical system accordingly.
- If the address is unchanged and confirmed, practices should select ‘Address unchanged and/or confirmed, remove FP69’ from a dropdown menu in their clinical system.
- If the patient has been seen since the flag was set, ‘Patient seen, remove FP69’ should be selected.
- If the patient has a new address, this should be updated in the clinical system, which will notify PCSE and result in the FP69 being cleared.
- Should the new address fall outside the practice boundary and the practice wishes to remove the patient, a formal removal request should be submitted through the clinical system.
Source: Primary Care Support England
