Family Practitioner Services
FPS provide a range of essential business services to HSC organisations, Primary care contractors & patients and plays a critical role in the payment of over £800m annually to health professionals in the dental, pharmacy, GP and ophthalmic sectors.
FPS maintains the central register of patients registered with General Medical Practices in Northern Ireland, which includes the issuing and processing changes to medical cards such as name, address and doctor. FPS calculates payments made to General Medical and Dental Practitioners, Chemists and Community Optometrists throughout Northern Ireland, provides professional advice, support and information to customers and members of the public and maintain the Pharmaceutical, Dental and the Northern Ireland Primary Medical Performers lists. FPS also provides the call and recall services for cervical and bowel cancer screening in Northern Ireland.
Working in partnership with Health and Social Care organisations and other key stakeholders, including the Department of Health, we provide a range of services to Primary Care contractors, all of which enable patient care – around 90% of patient interaction is with primary care services.
We work closely with both the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG) and Department of Health to develop and implement new services and we are one of the few BSO departments with a direct customer inter-face with the public.
We are also committed to embracing new technologies to provide effective and efficient service to all our customers.
A number of strategic teams work together to deliver a suite of comprehensive business services to HSC covering a fifth of the health budget: