The two new patient experience indicators, PE07 and PE08, worth 58.5 points were added to the QOF for 2008/9.

Practices in England averaged 954.2 points out of a possible 1,000 for 2008/9, a drop of 13.8 points on the score achieved in 2007/8, according to latest figures from the NHS Information Centre.

While in Scotland, there was a slight fall in achievement from 982.2 points in 2007/8 to 972 points in 2008/9.

Practices in Northern Ireland achieved the best scores in the UK averaging 973.1 points for 2008/9, compared with 986.7 points in the previous year.

But in Wales practices saw their scores hit hard with just 68.3% of practices achieving 950 or more of the possible 1,000 points. In the previous year, 85.1% of practices achieved this level. Welsh practices averaged 956.1 points in 2008/9 compared with 973 in 2007/8.

Earlier this year, GP newspaper predicted that practices would struggle to improve their QOF scores with many GPs finding it hard to score highly on the patient surveys.

Average scores were just 84% for PE7 and 76% for PE8.