The issue of 'ghost patients' is costing the UK taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds each year, with the British Medical Association (BMA) warning that aggressive efforts to remove them are putting genuine patients at risk. Ghost patients are individuals who have died or moved away but remain registered with their GP surgery, leading to payments for services that will never be used.
Cost to the NHS
GP surgeries receive approximately £130 per registered patient, and the total cost of ghost patients is estimated at £650 million annually, according to The Telegraph. Routine data audits, known as 'list cleansing', are designed to address the problem by removing these inactive registrations. However, the BMA has cautioned that the process has become too aggressive, resulting in the removal of legitimate patients.
Impact of Aggressive List Cleansing
Stuart Andrew, the shadow health secretary, highlighted the systemic issues contributing to the problem: “Paper records, outdated computers and fragmented systems all contribute to the administrative nightmare our health service has become. Waste needs to be cut in the NHS, but that will be increasingly difficult without the technology to bear down on unnecessary administration. Ghost patients are exactly the kind of problem that follows. Until that happens, hundreds of millions of pounds will keep flowing out of the door to no one.”
List cleansing involves sending letters to suspected ghost patients to confirm whether they wish to remain registered. The BMA reports that practices are now instructed to remove patients if they do not respond within three months, rather than the previous six-month period. This change has led to genuine patients being removed, risking missed reminders for health checks and imposing an administrative burden on practices that must then re-register them.
Funding Losses for GP Practices
Dr David Wrigley, the BMA’s GP committee deputy chairman, told The Telegraph: “This aggressive list-cleansing exercise has reduced GP practice patient lists by over 300,000 over the past 12 months, equating to practices losing just under £40m in funding for essential GP medical services. This comes at a time when practices in England are already severely underfunded.”
Preventing Ghost Patient Status
To avoid becoming a ghost patient when moving, individuals should register with a new GP in their new area as soon as possible. The NHS states that a person’s current GP surgery will be automatically notified once they register with a new practice. In the event of a death, relatives are advised to contact the deceased’s doctors, dentists, and other healthcare providers to inform them and cancel any appointments, according to Age UK.
NHS England Response
An NHS England spokesman told The Telegraph: “It is important that funding follows patients, rather than practices receiving money for patients no longer registered or living in England. NHS England has always worked with GP practices to regularly review their lists and improve their accuracy – with robust checks to ensure people are not removed inappropriately and patients contacted before any action is taken – ensuring money and staff time is not wasted on activity like unnecessary vaccination recalls.”
