http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36828745

What will this actually mean for someone like myself who has never been to see their GP because in the last 36 years since I registered with my current one I've never been ill enough to warrant it?

TBH I don't even know if the practice still exists...

It is a tricky one.
I can absolutely see a justification for removing people who are dead, in a different area or abroad from a practice list. At the same time, and as the BMA says, you shouldn't penalise people for being well.
I just can't help but think this is being pushed purely from a money saving point of view rather than for improving the system

This is essentially a way to cut money paid to GPs. We get a set amount per patient registered to run the practice. The figure varies based on things like deprivation, location etc. On average it's something like £135 per patient per year. For a practice of say 8000 patients, that's £1.08m to the practice. Obviously practice has to pay upkeep of building incl utilities, staff pay and pension, indemnity etc.

Now, not everyone attends. Some patients might come 12-16 times a year, others might come once in 12 years. But the practice runs on the basis that it's there for its population. If you mailshoot every one of those 8000 patients, how many are going to reply? How many are going to chuck it or ignore it? Even 1% of patients not bothering to reply means £11k less funding to the practice. For some practices, that's make or break money as things are so tight. Especially small practices, which are more vulnerable to changes in funding like this.

I understand patients will move - normally they register elsewhere but may forget to do so or don't have time. Dead patients - we get notified pretty much immediately and the patient's records are updated to reflect this. At most there might be 1-2 days delay because of the weekend or bank holidays. However, these patients will likely be less than the number of patients who don't respond. Imagine having to re-register every time you need access to your GP service. Imagine if this were extended to council services and hence the emergency services. " No sorry, we can't attend to your house that's on fire because you're not on our records".

Cynically I think this is a two-fold ploy to reduce money AND trigger small practices to fold. The future is going to be 30 GPs in a big building all managed by a private company. You'll have to travel a good few miles to see a GP, and I suspect the wait may be longer.

EDIT: Should also add that:
1. funding for primary care has dropped from 10-12% to 6% of NHS budget
2. GP budget already has a certain % top sliced to cover for these ghost patients because it was thought to be too much bureaucracy and hassle to chase these ghost patients.

And for the non-Private Eye readers

Capita faces second inquiry into £1.5bn Whitehall jobs contract | Business News | News | The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 54950.html

Hiring Capita is like having the Italian mob build property. When they're not stealing from you they're demanding money for a job they didn't do.