Provider Assurance Ophthalmic

Activities we carry out

We work on behalf of NHS England (NHSE) on the following tasks:

annual general ophthalmic services (GOS) complaints
GOS 4 pre-authorisation
GOS contract management - visit our dedicated contract management page
post-payment verification (PPV) - visit our dedicated Post-payment verification webpage

Annual general ophthalmic services (GOS) complaints

Submit your written complaints data for 2022/23 and 2023/24

This year’s general ophthalmic practice written complaints data collection will open on Monday 20May 2024.

The collection covers complaints made by or on behalf of patients between:

1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023
1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024

This year’s collection period closes at 11:59pm on Sunday 16 June 2024.

You can submit your complaints data online.

About the annual GOS complaints submission

The NHS has a statutory responsibility to collect service-wide information on patient complaints so we can identify trends, and demonstrate that the service is being responsive to patient feedback. It is a statutory and contractual requirement for primary care providers to declare the number of written NHS complaints received for GOS in your practice by submitting a return.

Support

The annual GOS complaints submission national briefing (Word: 247KB) from April 2024 includes guidance notes for completing the submission.

If you have any questions, contact our Provider Assurance team by:

Email: pao@nhsbsa.nhs.uk

Our hours are 8am to 4:30pm, Monday to Friday.

GOS 4 pre-authorisation

We must authorise all claims for GOS 4 repair or replacement vouchers.

Ophthalmic contractors are required to seek pre-authorisation from us for all GOS 4 claims. Patients are entitled to a GOS 4 if they have damaged or lost their glasses and they are:

aged 16 or over
in receipt of a particular benefit
have a qualifying health condition

Patients aged 16 to 17 and in support of local care do not need pre-approval.

Read the updated:

GOS 4 National Briefing (Word: 246KB)

GOS4 Pre-Authorisation Template (Word: 240KB)

You should contact us before carrying out any repair or providing replacement glasses. If patients contact us directly, they will be directed back to the appropriate contractor.

To get authorisation, you should complete our GOS 4 Pre-authorisation Template (Word: 240KB) and email it to our provider assurance team at pao@nhsbsa.nhs.uk

Prior to authorising the GOS 4, under instruction from the Optometric Fees Negotiating Committee, we will ask you some questions about the claim.

Once we’ve received the information from you, we will assess your claim as quickly as possible.

Under the Lens articles

Under the Lens is a series of articles from our clinical advisor team. We publish content based on feedback we receive from GOS contractors.

Our latest articles are:

Under the Lens: Pre-authorising your GOS 4 vouchers (Word: 102KB)

If you have a suggestion for a future topic, please contact: pao@nhsbsa.nhs.uk

Delegated Responsibility and Ophthalmic Services webinar

We recently held a 90-minute webinar on the topic of Delegated Responsibility and Ophthalmic Services aimed at contract and commissioning leads, strategy and transformation leads, primary care leads, quality leads, and business intelligence / performance leads.

The webinar covers the mandated and extra support the NHS Business Services Authority can offer to assist integrated care boards when taking on delegated commissioning responsibility for NHS ophthalmic services. It discusses topics such as contract management, data collection and maintenance, payment processing and post-payment verification, quality assurance, and data and insight.

View the Delegated Responsibility and Ophthalmic Services webinar on YouTube.

How to apply for an NHSmail account

If you're a GOS contractor, NHSmail is a safe and secure way to communicate with us.

To get an NHSmail account, complete our online form. This process can take up to two weeks.

The Data Security Protection (DSP) Toolkit must be completed before applying for an NHSmail account. This requirement was temporarily waivered until 30 June 2021.

Note that this registration route is only available to organisations with 10 or less practices at the present time.

Contact Us

Due to coronavirus (COVID-19), our phone lines for Provider Assurance Ophthalmic are temporarily unavailable. If you need to contact us, we're available to support by email between 8am and 4:30pm. You can email us at pao@nhsbsa.nhs.uk