1. Introduction

An assessment using management information has been undertaken to establish implementation of contractual changes by general practice. This note outlines the approach taken and provides a national assessment.

2. Data source

2025 GP practice returns submitted through the General Practice Annual Electronic Self-Declaration (eDEC).

3. Classification

Business sensitive, management information: Annual GP Practice electronic self declaration.

4. Background

From 1 October 2025 GP practices were required to:

• keep their online consultation tools open for patient contacts for the duration of their core hours (8am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays). GP practices may take necessary steps to put safeguards in place to avoid urgent clinical requests being erroneously submitted online
• link from their practice website to the NHS England’s You and your general practice document and respond to patient feedback resulting from engagement with this. You and your general practice sets out the standards patients can expect and how they can support their GP team
• ensure GP Connect functionality is enabled in their clinical system that allows read-only access to patients’ care records (Access Record) to other NHS direct care providers and private healthcare providers (where they obtain explicit patient permission and are providing direct care to the patient). Updating the record functionality allows community pharmacy registered professionals to send consultation summaries into the GP practice workflow – which will reduce administrative burden for general practice teams

GP practices are also required to complete an annual return to their commissioner. Since 2014, this has been done through the eDEC collection, typically running over a 6-week period. The eDEC includes a range of business sensitive questions supporting commissioners (integrated care boards) in their contractual assurance and review processes.

Most eDEC content relates to assurance on practice processes and procedures aligned to contractual requirements. No patient information is collected. Specific subsets of information also collected (for example, GP practice contractual boundaries are shared with NHS.UK to support online patient registration.

5. Methodology

The 2025 eDEC collection runs from 13 October 2025, with a deadline for returns of 21 November 2025, and includes the following new questions:

• “4ZA The practice can confirm and evidence where requested, that its online consultation tool is switched on for the duration of core hours as per the contract regulations, for example e.g. for non-urgent appointment requests, medication queries and admin requests”.
• “5AD The practice can confirm it has published a link to the General Practice Patient Charter ‘You and Your GP’ on its practice website”.
• “6UA The practice can confirm in accordance with the GP contract regulations, that its computerised clinical systems are configured to enable other health and care settings to continuously Access Patient’s GP records via GP Connect: HTML”.
• “6UB The practice can confirm in accordance with the GP contract regulations, that its computerised clinical systems are configured to enable other health and care settings to continuously Access Patient’s GP records via GP Connect: Structured”.
• “6V The practice can confirm, in accordance with the GP contract regulations, that its computerised clinical systems are configured to enable community pharmacy registered professionals to send consultation summaries to the GP practice workflow”.

Practices are able to respond ‘yes‘ or ’no‘. Responses to the question in all practice returns submitted by close 21 November have been assessed and the results are presented below.

6. Results

Data extracted from eDEC collection system confirms national compliance status as follows:

a. Online consultation 

 b. You and your general practice 

 c. GP Connect: Access Record – HTML 

d. GP Connect: Access Record – Structured

e. GP Connect: Update Record 

7. Data caveats and supporting notes

The collection closed at midnight on Friday 21 November to GP practice submissions. There are 38 GP practices who, due to a technical issue at the beginning of the collection, have been given until Friday 28 November to submit their declaration. Their figures are not included in this assessment. As the nationally reported percentage compliance will not materially change with those submissions included, an updated assessment will not be published.

GP practice responses are self-declared and have not been subject to independent validation or approval.

GP practices are reminded of the importance of ensuring that responses to questions are accurate and can withstand legal scrutiny. The declaration is treated as a formal submission once declared.

As a declaration of contractual compliance, practice-level data is treated as commercially confidential, so its publication is restricted.

Publication reference: PRN02265