NHS list-cleansing drive ‘based on old data’

LMC leaders have called for a stop to draconian list-cleansing schemes after their analysis of the most recent census data suggested the estimates for so-called ‘ghost patients' on GP lists are vastly out of date.

Londonwide LMCs has claimed the drive to remove patients from GP lists was based on census data from 2001, but that there has been a huge surge in population across London since then, with growth of 30% in some areas.

The Department of Health ordered PCTs nationally to collectively identify and remove 2.5 million so-called ‘ghost patients' by April 2013, after it showed the number of patients registered at practices was 25% higher than the estimated local population.

But the official 2011 census data for London published earlier this year shows that all but three of the capital's 32 boroughs have seen population growth of more than 10% since 2001, with some soaring by up to 30%.

Londonwide LMCs said the data provided ‘official evidence that PCT lists significantly under-represent our populations' and proved that the schemes targeting swathes of so-called ‘ghost patients' for removal from practice lists should be stopped immediately. 

Dr Michelle Drage, chief executive of Londonwide LMCs, said the census data provided the evidence required to halt schemes that were having an impact on the most vulnerable patients.

In newsletter to GPs, Dr Drage said: ‘It's a simple message for the NHS in London and for the NHS Commissioning Board, which has made list inflation a target in its operating framework: if you continue to use underestimated figures to fund primary care, health inequalities will grow and grow wider.

‘We will be ramping up our message to the NHS in London and the NHS Commissioning Board to stop and take a good hard look at what the census figures show us about the real populations we are serving, and adjust their policies on list inflation accordingly.'

Dr Tony Grewal, medical director of Londonwide LMCs, told Pulse: ‘If their supposedly "good" motives for doing this were genuine, these figures would stop all list cleansing in its tracks immediately.

‘They should transfer all their efforts to encouraging patients to register, and then something like the Once for London rolling maintenance programme – which is of benefit to everybody – could be gently introduced.'