Meeting NHS Care QOF Targets: Digital Solutions for GP Practices

As demand on UK primary care continues to rise, NHS England’s Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) and the push for proactive care are becoming increasingly central to improving patient outcomes. But with limited time, resource constraints, and legacy systems, many GP practices struggle to meet these ambitious targets.

At Hippo Labs, we believe the answer lies in smart, simple digital solutions that empower practices to work efficiently while keeping patient care at the heart of everything they do. In this post, we’ll explore how primary care practices can harness technology to meet their QOF targets, deliver on proactive care commitments, and reduce administrative burden—without adding stress to already over-stretched teams.

What Are QOF Targets and Why Do They Matter?

The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) is a voluntary reward and incentive programme for GP surgeries in England. Introduced in 2004, it encourages practices to improve the quality of care delivered to patients through evidence-based interventions.

QOF measures performance across multiple clinical domains—like diabetes, asthma, hypertension, and mental health—as well as public health areas such as smoking and obesity. Each area includes indicator points that practices earn by meeting certain benchmarks, which in turn affect funding.

In 2024/25, QOF has become even more integrated with national proactive care strategies, encouraging practices to identify and manage long-term conditions before they escalate. The challenge? These initiatives rely on practices having accurate, up-to-date patient data and the capacity to act on it systematically.

The Shift Toward Proactive Care in General Practice

Historically, much of UK primary care has been reactive—patients attend appointments when symptoms worsen. But the NHS Long Term Plan outlined a new vision: proactive, population-based care, where patients with known risk factors are supported before they reach crisis points.

Proactive care means:

• Identifying at-risk patients through population health data 🔍

• Targeting interventions to those most likely to benefit 🎯

• Offering routine check-ins or preventive treatments ☑️

• Following up on non-responders or patients overdue for reviews ☎️

  
  

The intention is clear: reduce emergency admissions, lower the burden on secondary care, and improve long-term health outcomes.

However, making this shift requires a cultural and operational transformation—especially for GP surgeries that are already firefighting with limited capacity. That’s where digital solutions can make a difference.

Digital Solutions That Support QOF and Proactive Care

Let’s look at some key areas where digital tools—like those developed by Hippo Labs—are helping practices meet care targets efficiently and sustainably.

1. Automated Patient Recall Campaigns

Manual patient outreach is time-consuming and often inconsistent. Many practices still rely on letters or phone calls to remind patients of annual reviews, vaccinations, or long-term condition check-ins.

Digital recall solutions transform this process by automatically identifying eligible patients and sending personalised messages via SMS, email, whatsapp, or NHS App notifications. At Hippo Labs, we’ve seen practices reduce outreach admin time by up to 70% using automated, multi-channel campaigns.

Key benefits:

• Faster, more consistent patient engagement

• Higher response rates (especially with SMS & NHS App)

• Real-time analytics on outreach success and attendance

  
  

2. Intelligent Stratification and Prioritisation

Digital tools can help practices identify patients most at risk of deterioration or those overdue QOF-indicated reviews. Our platform integrates with existing patient records to surface insights like:

• Patients with uncontrolled diabetes who haven’t had an HbA1c test in 6 months

• COPD patients who missed their annual review

• Immunocompromised patients requiring certain vaccinations

  
  

By prioritising outreach based on risk, practices can focus limited capacity where it will have the most clinical impact—and the most QOF value.

3. Seamless Booking and Integration

An often overlooked challenge in proactive care is the friction patients experience in booking appointments. If a message says “you’re due for your asthma review” but requires a phone call to book, many simply won’t follow through.

Our digital solutions offer direct booking links, allowing patients to choose a suitable slot in seconds. Practices can configure availability, triage requirements, and clinician types, ensuring patients are booked into the right type of care—be it a face-to-face review, a nurse-led clinic, or a digital consultation.

Having trouble deciding on which tools to use?

Despite the clear benefits, digital transformation in general practice doesn’t happen overnight. Here are some common challenges—and how practices are addressing them:

1. Digital Exclusion

Not all patients can or want to use digital tools. Our systems allow practices to identify non-digital responders and offer them alternative outreach methods (e.g. postal or phone follow-ups).

2. Staff Time and Training

Onboarding new systems can feel like "yet another thing" for busy teams. That’s why we focus on plug-and-play integrations with your EPR system, and provide live support and training to practice staff.

3. Change Fatigue

Introducing too many new tools at once can be overwhelming. We recommend starting with one high-impact area (e.g. diabetes recalls), then scaling to other conditions. Our recall tool is feature rich meaning you won't have to compensate with other tools elsewhere. Just start your campaigns and watch the patients arrive for their appointments!

How Digital Tools Help Align with ICS Goals

Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) are now central to how NHS services are commissioned and coordinated. Many ICSs have set population health targets aligned to national priorities, including QOF indicators and proactive care delivery.

By adopting smart digital workflows, individual practices can:

• Align more closely with ICS-level strategies

• Share standardised metrics and reporting

• Demonstrate local impact and value for money

• Attract funding or partnership opportunities

In other words, digital transformation doesn’t just improve individual practice performance—it strengthens the primary care network as a whole.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Proactive, Digital-first Primary Care

The direction of travel for UK healthcare is clear: more data, more prevention, more personalised care—and more digital tools to make it all possible.

We’re seeing early evidence that thoughtful use of automation, data insights, and patient-centric communication can not only help practices meet their QOF targets, but also deliver truly proactive care that improves lives.

At Hippo Labs, we’re building digital infrastructure that helps practices make that leap—without burning out their teams.

Final Thoughts

Meeting QOF targets and delivering proactive care shouldn’t feel like an impossible task. With the right digital tools, GP practices can unlock time, improve outcomes, and stay aligned with NHS priorities.

Want to see how Hippo Labs can help your practice?

👉 Book a demo or get in touch to start your digital care journey.