§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the work of the National Duplicate Registration Initiative; and what his estimate is of the number of ghost patients in each health authority area removed from local medical lists since its establishment and the consequential saving to the NHS. [125665]
§ Mr. DenhamThe National Duplicate Registration Initiative exercise is being carried out as part of the annual audit of health authorities, under statutory powers available to the Audit Commission. To date some 16,000 duplicate registrations have been identified and removed from general practitioners' lists. There are no consequential savings to the NHS because the payment 355W GPs receive per patient (capitation fee) comes from within the profession's total pay entitlement. Removing list inflation means that payments will be redistributed within the profession on a more legitimate basis but there will be no overall saving.