Earlier this year, Capita announced a three-year extension to its primary care support services contract with NHS England. Pulse’s recent investigation has analysed the performance of Capita’s service delivery arm Primary Care Support England (PCSE), how it has affected GPs and patient care, and the justification for the extension. As part of this we spoke to GPs about their experience with the organisation. These are their stories.
In 2019, a GP in Yorkshire contacted PCSE after being unable to access a pensions statement from NHSBSA. She was told that she had not submitted any pensions contributions since March 2016 – amounting to ‘thousands and thousands of pounds’ – despite having sent her cheques and locum forms in ‘religiously’ and by the required date during this period.
‘PCSE took my details, said they couldn’t get into my information, they didn’t know what was going on…I would leave a message and it could be four to six weeks before I would hear back,’ she says.
After accessing support from the BMA and campaign group GP survival, the GP was later sent the information PCSE held on her pensions contributions for the three-year period. She reviewed this against her own records, and found 13 months’ worth of discrepancies and missing information.
‘I spent almost a whole weekend looking for previous forms A, B and proof of payment for those 13 months. I had to check every single contribution made from April 2016 to April 2019. I emailed them screenshots of all relevant forms and bank statements. There were over 200 documents,’ she says.
In March 2020, the GP was told by PCSE that her information had been updated. But this wasn’t the case, and she has been paying for an accountant to help resolve some of the outstanding issues ever since. Two years later, she has still not been able to access an up-to-date total rewards statement.
‘I went through all this trauma and stress while caring for one of my children who was receiving cancer treatment. I was extremely stressed, anxious, and worried that my money had disappeared into some account, and that I was never going to see it again,’ she says.
She adds: ‘I still get quite stressed when I think about it and when I get an email asking me to send more and more information and I’ve already sent it, it does increase my stress level as well.
‘I did consider applying for compensation, but I just feel that process in itself is going to be quite a difficult thing to do.’
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