The LMC Support Network has published Counting the Cost – a briefing paper on how a national exercise to ‘validate’ GP patient lists is removing hundreds of thousands of patients nationally from GP practice registers – and with them, the funding that pays for staff, services and care.
NHS commissioners are running a large-scale validation of GP patient lists using the long-established FP69 and FP22 processes. Practices have reported losing income at a time of acute financial strain, being given little information about how patients are being selected, and discovering that patients removed in error include some of the most vulnerable people they serve. An estimated £18m per year of core GP funding will be lost each year as a direct result of the net contraction in registered patient lists during the validation exercise. Read the response from NHS England to the briefing paper, and the LMC Support Network reply to NHSE.
GPC England have only received limited reassurances about the process. However, the government has confirmed that funding released from this activity will be reinvested in general practice services. GPCE are continuing to discuss with NHS England how this will be done. Please contact the LMC if your practice has been affected by this.
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