Want to investigate GP patient lists?

UPDATE (Feb 24 2012): You can find GP surgery-level data on demographics and other contextual information on the NHS IC Indicators site.

We’ve been following developments related to GP patient lists and proposals to abolish GP boundaries for a while, and this week saw some particularly interesting developments .

Pule reported that Department of Health advisory body Primary Care Commissioning had issued guidance on “brutal new GP list cleansing targets next year”:

“[T]he guidance lists successful list-cleansing schemes and gives examples of targeted campaigns in South Gloucestershire, South West Essex and Berkshire West which resulted in the removal of 24,000 ghost patients.

“They include sending verification letters to all patients aged over 90 to 100 years and annually to all immigrants. If they do not respond, then these patients will be given a FP69 flag to inform their GP the patient will be removed from their list.

“They also say anyone who is out of the country for three months or more should be automatically struck off GP lists and that multi-occupancy dwellings should be targeted.”

Meanwhile Eastlondonlines reported on 2 of the 6 places chosen to pilot abolishing GP boundaries for a year from the beginning of April. These are: Continue reading