Why is the BDA publishing this data?
This data are published by the NHS Business Services Authority (BSA) annually. The BDA has undertaken to present it in a more user-friendly way, so that members can access important information about their contract and practice.
Why isn’t my contract listed?
The NHSBSA data used in this Checker covers the period from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020. If your contract was inactive during this period or did not receive any NHS payments then it won’t feature amongst the list of contracts.
In addition, the Checker was developed to help members better understand their contract by comparing it with similar contracts in their area team, hence the Checker focuses on active GDS contracts that were comparable with each other. This means we excluded PDS contracts, contracts with less than 1 UDA and contracts with a negative contract value. Also, we focused on contracts with UDAs so removed those which also included UOAs. And we also removed extreme UDA values falling outside the £15 to £45 range.
I don't know the NHS contract number or can't find it easily, what do I do?
Go to the "Estimated UDA value by contract" tab and try searching for the practice's postcode or for the name of the practice.
To do so in Windows:
- Go to the "Estimated UDA value by contract" tab.
- Click on a random cell.
- On your keyboard, first press simultaneously CTRL+A, then press CTRL+F and type the details you want to search for - e.g. Smile Dental Practice.
- Click on "Find Next" until you have browsed all the possibilities and / or found the practice you were after.
How can I get my data removed?
This data is published by the NHS Business Services Authority (BSA). Guidance from the NHS BSA indicates that “it is in the public interest to understand the amounts that NHS dental contractors receive to operate and how these vary between contracts and across the country".
The statistics are extracted from NHSBSA CoMPASS as part of its operational process and is a secondary use of the data. There is, therefore, no additional burden on NHS organisations or dental contractors to complete and return this data themselves.”
The information about my contract is wrong – how can I get it corrected?
NHS dental practices included within this database should use the NHSBSA dental services help desk for any queries on the figures. As data should be reconciled and queried when monthly reports are received, discrepancies with this data should be exceptional.
Figures are an accurate summary of the data supplied and validated. However, given the number of NHS dental contracts, it is constantly changing in composition. Also, due to the nature and timing of local data entry and checking processes, there will always remain some uncertainty about the true position of payments made at a granular level to individual NHS contractors. See NHS BSA guidance for further information.
Why isn’t more up-to-date information available?
The NHS Business Services Authority (BSA) publishes data annually in the autumn on the previous financial year. In-year data is not available, as many of the fields of data published rely on year-end reconciliations.
Published dental payments information is derived from the NHSBSA CoMPASS system. Users of this system for example, appropriate persons from NHS England Local Offices can monitor their own payments information throughout the year. They also have access to reports which provide the same level of information as that which is published by the NHSBSA. From February 2016 contractors also have access to CoMPASS, providing them with information on FP17s and various reports, Vital Signs, monthly payment schedules, from which they can monitor their payments and activity. See NHS BSA guidance for further information.
Is the latest DDRB uplift applied to the figure?
No. The data were collected on the previous financial year so before the latest DDRB uplift was agreed on. Hence the Checker doesn’t reflect this contract uplift.
How did you calculate the UDA value?
To calculate the estimated UDA value, we have divided the baseline contract value by the number of contracted UDAs after having removed contracts that did not match our list of criteria. Contracts of interest were GDS contracts with at least 1 UDA and no UOAs.
Why isn’t similar data available for Wales?
This data set is only published by the NHS Business Services Authority (BSA) for England.
How does the estimated UDA value take account of contract ‘bolt ons’ that aren’t paid for in UDAs?
Through the filters we have applied to the NHS BSA data set, we hope to have excluded as many contracts as we are able to identify that have additional contracted activity to deliver that is not paid for in UDAs - which would skew the UDA value we would generate. We have also removed extreme values or outliers that we believe are unlikely to be a fair representation of the contract’s true UDA value. Despite this, it is possible that we have been unable to identify some contracts of this nature based on the data available and this is, in part, why the UDA value is referred to as an estimate.
