In 2023, 6,669 general practices received £10.2 billion in NHS funding across England, increasing to £11 billion with COVID-related and Primary Care Network (PCN) payments. Almost 10% of this—£870 million—was allocated to prescribing- and dispensing-related payments, supporting 944 dispensing practices serving 9.5 million patients (£625 million) and 5,537 non-dispensing practices covering 53 million patients (£245 million).
In 2023/24, 6,669 practices received £10.2 billion from the NHS. Capitation payments to individual practices are adjusted using the Carr-Hill formula. On average, practices received £164.64 per patient, with higher payments for practices serving older populations due to higher healthcare needs, prescribing costs and the specific needs of rural areas. This analysis explores how NHS payments to general practices are informed by the age structure, deprivation and rurality of registered patients.
There are stark inequalities in the supply, demand and need of general practice. ICBs can take action to address these inequalities.
We’ve developed datapacks for each ICB England to help them understand their inequalities and take action.
Below are the datapacks for the East of England ICBs. If you’d like a copy of your own ICBs datapack, please email us [email protected]
General practices serving the most deprived populations receive less funding per weighted patient than those serving the least deprived. Here we show that this inequality is driven by a higher concentration of dispensing practices in more affluent areas.
Overall patient satisfaction with general practice has improved slightly according to the GP Patient Survey 2024, but remains substantially lower than pre-pandemic levels. Patient satisfaction is not the same across the country. Read more to understand inequalities in patient satisfaction from the latest data.
Previous research has shown an association between funding and patient experience; practices receiving less funding have lower levels of patient satisfaction. Our work explores how funding, workforce and patient experience are related.
In this resource, we explore structural inequalities in primary care at the ICB level in the East of England. We provide data on NHS payments to GP surgeries, payments per weighted patient and patient satisfaction, showing differences across socioeconomic groups.
The factors determining the quality and quantity of primary care services vary across England. Here we analyse practice level data relating to the supply, demand, and need for primary care, according to the socioeconomic status of the patients served.
