Current issues facing general practice

Once again, general practice has been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The NHS Counter Fraud Squad are investigating general practice ‘ghost patients' in response to a statement from Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green, Roger Godsiff. Mr Godsiff asked what action was being taken to ‘tackle the alleged practice of GP surgeries receiving payments for so-called ‘ghost patients' still registered at that GP practice but who have died or moved away’ (Bostock, 2019). The number of ghost patients has risen sharply, which is evident since the provision of primary care support services were outsourced to a private company, Capita, in 2015. This identification occurred through the list-cleansing process since the takeover.

It is obvious that practices are not inflating their patient lists artificially. Patients are added when they register at the practice, and removed when they move out of the area or if they have left the country. However, anecdotal reports have seen patients having to re-register at their own practices because they have been identified as ghost patients. I am sure, as conscientious GPNs, if we had concerns about ghost patients we would inform our practice managers.