How Vernon Park Surgery Got Coding Off the GP's Desk
Vernon Park Surgery — single-handed GP practice, Brinnington, Stockport
"Accurate QOF coding has transformed our GPs' work-life balance, allowing them to focus on clinical and governance work."
At a single-handed practice, if there's no one else to do the coding job, it lands on the GP. Dr Chatterjee would work through letters in whatever time left over — evenings sometimes, lunch on a good day. The work is real, but rarely enough to justify hiring someone full time. So it just sits with the GP, and the GP absorbs it, week after week.
Working with Medloop changed that. Now that a dedicated resource is properly managing these tasks, Dr. Chatterjee has freed up valuable time to focus on direct patient care rather than coding.
Does This Sound Familiar?
- Coding happens when there is spare time, never as a dedicated job.
- You suspect QOF codes are slipping through the cracks, but with everything else going on, nobody has the time to actually check.
- You've thought about hiring a coder. The maths never quite worked.
- Someone goes off sick and the letters build up — and somebody has to clear out the backlog later.
- CQC paperwork takes longer to pull together than it feels like it should.
What Was Happening Before
Without a big admin team to pass coding off to, the burden fell straight onto Dr Chatterjee—stacked right on top of a full patient list. Squeezing coding into spare time never really works. Things get missed, QOF income gets left on the table, and Dr Chatterjee ends up sacrificing his evenings just to stay afloat.
Yet Vernon Park still faces the same high expectations as any large practice. Between strict CQC and QOF requirements and training medical students, there's zero room for error—and plenty of eyes watching.
What Actually Changed
A lot of coding tools focus purely on speed. But speed by itself doesn't solve much for a practice like this. If a code gets filed wrong, or if incoming mail piles up the minute the GP takes a week's leave, you end up with a bigger mess than what you started with. Here's what sets this apart.
A person is always in the loop. Always.
The AI reads each letter and suggests codes, QOF included, and points to exactly which part of the letter backs up the suggestion.
Nothing gets written into the record until one of our coders has actually looked at it and agreed. The AI narrows things down. A person decides.
It learns how Vernon Park works, not the other way round.
The workflow's built around Vernon Park's own referral routes and the way Dr Chatterjee already does things — not a template used the same way everywhere.
When a letter needs judgement rather than a straightforward rule, a coder makes that call. Not a model, on its own.
There's no hire to make.
We recruit, train, and manage our own coders. That's not a cost or a headache for the practice.
No locum cover while someone new learns the ropes, and no practice manager time spent overseeing it.
The cost tracks how much correspondence actually turns up, not a fixed salary regardless.
Nothing Waits on One Person
Single-handed practices don't have the spare capacity to absorb a backlog. When the person doing the coding is away, incoming letters pile up fast. That's the exact scenario this model was built to prevent.
- Coding is handled by a dedicated team rather than one individual—so annual leave or sick days won't stall your workflow.
- The process doesn't grind to a halt when someone is off, because it never depended on a single person to begin with.
- A sudden surge of clinical letters gets handled immediately by the wider team instead of turning into a massive backlog.
Time back. And less on his mind.
What used to pull Dr. Chatterjee away from patient care is now managed by a team whose sole focus is clinical coding. He’s left with what actually requires a doctor: looking after patients.
"As a small practice, coding was done by GPs, creating a heavy admin burden. Medloop offered an affordable coding service tailored to our clinical governance needs and protocols, with fast turnaround times that help us meet CQC requirements. Accurate QOF coding has transformed our GPs' work-life balance, allowing them to focus on clinical and governance work."
Questions Other Practices Ask Us
Will this work with our clinical system?
Yes. We work directly with EMIS Web—fully integrated via IM1—and support SystmOne workflows as well. You won't need to change how your practice operates day to day to get started.
Is there a minimum volume or long-term contract?
No. You can start with a free trial to see how we handle your practice's actual letters before making any long-term commitment.
How do you keep our patient data secure?
We are ISO 27001:2022 certified and DSPT assured (ODS Code: 8K943). Crucially, nothing is ever added to a patient record without a qualified human coder reviewing it first.
We have unique practice workflows. Can you accommodate them?
Absolutely. We build the workflow alongside you, rather than forcing a rigid template on your team. It adapts directly to your existing referral pathways and internal preferences.
We're a small practice with lower letter volume. Is this still worth it?
In our experience, smaller practices actually benefit the most. There are no minimum volume requirements, meaning you get specialist capacity without paying for unnecessary administrative headcount.
See It on Your Own Letters First
If clinical coding currently falls on your GPs because hiring dedicated admin support hasn't made sense for your practice size, the simplest next step is to test it on your real correspondence—completely free.
Start your free trial