ETC Payment Timetable

Payment Process 

The payment process begins with a study being assigned by the Triage team and the ETC helpdesk contacting you to agree on a payment model. Following this, your recruitment should be uploaded to the Central Portfolio Management System (CPMS), allowing payments to flow through the finance system to the organisation(s) agreed by the Chief Investigator or Sponsor of the study. 

Data cuts are taken on a quarterly basis and schedules are distributed through the network to the partner organisations who have incurred the funds. Once payments are calculated and provider thresholds have been deducted, then payments are distributed bi-annually in arrears in line with the timetable below. Funds will be distributed by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to the Regional Research Delivery Network (RRDN) Host Organisation as a combined Q1/Q2 and Q3/Q4 payment. 

It is the RRDN host organisation's responsibility to coordinate these payments to the partner organisations in line with the schedules that will be distributed to the network. No invoices or contracts are required to facilitate payments through to partner organisations. Previous payments can be accessed on the Open Database Platform by selecting Excess Treatment Costs from the dropdown and the year you require.  A reconciliation will need to completed by the RRDN host organisation on a quarterly basis. 

For any additional information please see the notes below or alternatively the Payment Principles provided.

Please note that this letter template, can be used by RRDN Hosts when issuing ETC payments where no signed sub-contract exists. For clarity, the RRDN Partner sub-contract (Category A, B or C) does not need to be issued and signed before an ETC payment can be made by the RRDN Host. However, any existing sub-contracts that have been fully executed are still valid, and there is no requirement for any variation to be issued to these. 

If you require the above table in a different format, please contact the etc.helpdesk@nihr.ac.uk.

Notes

1. The national ETC payment system calculates payments in arrears, the month after the end of the relevant quarterly period.

2. The Q1 and Q3 payments will be combined with the Q2 and Q4 payments respectively. Payment Schedules for the Q1 and Q3 periods will be produced and circulated to the RRDN Finance teams to make them aware of Q1 and Q3 payments that are due to Providers.

3. Payments are made based on confirmed recruitment in the NIHR RDN Central Portfolio Management System (CPMS) at the point of the data cut. Recruitment uploaded and/or confirmed after this date is not included in the quarterly payment calculations but will be included as retrospective recruitment in the following quarter within the current financial year, providing it has been confirmed. All recruitment should be confirmed on CPMS prior to the Q4 data cut. Provisional data is not included in the ETC payment calculations unless NHSE confirms otherwise. The RDNCC Business Intelligence team is responsible for undertaking and managing the data cut.

4. The RDNCC ETC Finance team uses the recruitment data to calculate the ETCs payable to Providers. This takes the form of Payment Schedules provided at both RRDN and Provider levels.

5. On instruction from the RDNCC ETC Finance team, payments are made by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to the 12 RRDN Host Organisations using the agreed Payment Schedule.

6. Each RRDN Host Organisation is required to make payments to their Providers within 30 days of receiving payment from DHSC, as per the Payment Schedule provided.

7. Each RRDN is required to complete and return a reconciliation specifying the amounts paid/unpaid and reasons if applicable.