"NHS England is responsible for paying GP Practices for their services. GP practices are paid on the basis of the number of patients on their list. This is obtained from the registered patient list held by NHS Digital on behalf of NHS England."
(taken from NHS England).
cptartapp · Today 18:15
"The 'GP's' don't get paid for it no. It goes in the practice pot to put the lights on and pay the staff from the cleaner upwards.
Don't cooperate by all means, but then don't complain when service provision doesn't meet your needs.
In an ideal word external reporting wouldn't be first choice, but desperate times...."
So, as GP practices are partnerships and not part of the NHS in the same way that hospitals are, they have autonomy on multiple key decisions which affect patients (eg where there surgeries are, how quickly you get an appointment if at all, the general availability of qualified doctors and the ease with which to be referred to a consultant eg for cancer (is the most recent example I have seen, and whether this money goes to keeping the lights on or whether it goes to the GP's salary.
Its very obvious that the qualification for someone being "practices are paid on the basis of the number of patients on their list" could literally be increased by the number of people who have been automated contacted by what Sidge · Today 18:12 describes namely
" large scale messages to either provide or request information. Eg smoking status, height and weight, let you know you can now book a flu jab, that your prescription has been done or your asthma review is due."
You have received a text via the above you are a patient on their books the funding flows through from the government. Its very slick. The fact that you might actually have a life limiting condition/disease/illness and actually need to see someone in person does not matter, you are on their books so that is enough.
This is why a recent example I came across happened. An elderly person I know who really really needed to see a GP as you describe could not get an appointment. They left it and left it because to get an in person appointment would have required the kind of tenacity I would expect to see from someone far younger. Eventually one of their younger relatives who had also tried to get them an in person appointment lost their rag and filled out forms to move this elderly patient to another surgery which happened to be over the border of the NHS trust boundary so the new GP surgery came under a different NHS trust and therefore different funding.
Only then was there any kind of notice taken, the original GP surgery got very shirtly and angry with the elderly patient for actually trying to do this because (i) I imagine it flagged up their statistics somewhere and, more importantly (ii) losing patients to another surgery hit their bottom line and they did not want to lose the money.
The man died shortly after of advanced cancer which might have been caught had he actually got an in person appointment when he first started complaining of symptoms.
And no this was not a social worker/care in the community case, he had relatives and neighbours who all tried to get in person appointments for him.
Its about the money and the money is assured if you are "on the books" i.e. you have received a text from the GP surgery.
By the way, on a personal level incase there is any doubt, of course I update all of my own information via patient access (there are other similar platforms used by various GP partnerships I understand, another decision they make on a practice by practice basis) and I always have done, healthcare and in particular GP surgeries are like high street banks in 2023, they are all shut and unless you are prepared to and able to run your life via a computer screen including anything to do with your physical body, then tough.