The Optometric Fees Negotiating Committee (OFNC) has announced that an agreement has been reached with NHS England to ensure that GOS contractors will be reimbursed for PPE costs incurred before NHS funded PPE was made available in August.
An OFNC statement explained: ‘We have now agreed with the Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England that the most pragmatic way of achieving this is by cancelling the planned GOS support payment deductions.’
The statement explained that OFNC’s goal ‘has been to ensure that practices do not lose out from having to source PPE privately for NHS work, while avoiding the bureaucratic burdens involved in submitting and processing receipts, and splitting PPE costs between NHS and self-funded care.’
GOS contractors do no need to take any action on this agreement, as NHS England has not yet made any deductions and now will not do so.
In its agreement with the OFNC, NHS England said that the savings contractors are deemed to have made in variable costs associated with service delivery have been offset against additional PPE costs incurred for NHS work.