Patients face being removed from GP surgery lists if they do not contact their doctor for five years as part of an NHS drive to save money.
According to the Guardian’s coverage, A patient who has been out of touch for that long will receive two letters, and if they do not respond, they will be taken off their GP’s list.
NHS England says the scheme will ensure that it does not waste vital funds by paying GPs about £100 a year for looking after “ghost patients” – those who have died, moved away or no longer want their local surgery’s services. But GP leaders have asked for the initiative to be scrapped and warned that it will lead to patients being excluded for no good reason and deprive surgeries of money they need to keep running.
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Pulse, a website for GPs, has discovered that NHS England plans to introduce the deregistration scheme at all 8,000 GP surgeries across England after a trial.
It has drawn up a contract with Capita that sets out how the company will go about delisting patients. It says: “The supplier shall contact all GP practices in the 11th month of every contract year requesting a list of all patients who are recorded as not having had contact with the GP practice in the past five years.”
After it has received those lists, Capita will contact each patientithin 10 working days” to check their “current address and registration details”. If the patient does not reply they will face being removed from the practice list within six months if the GP still cannot contact them. GPs in eastern England voiced fears that the pilot scheme would lead to key groups – notably children, but also men aged between 20 and 45 who are seen as more likely not to respond to prompts – missing out on access to GP care because of “list cleaning”.