Five million NHS 'ghost' patients expose GP system 'stuck in a bygone age'

The NHS must drag general practice out of the paper-records era and allow patients to see GPs wherever they are, a leading doctor said last night after figures revealed five million “ghost patients” on surgery lists.

Oxford University health expert, Professor Carl Heneghan, said the registration system was built for a pre-digital age and was struggling to cope with modern life as people move regularly for work and study.

The professor, an urgent care GP, spoke out after figures showed there are around 63.4 million patients registered with GP practices in England, despite the population standing at 58.6 million.

This means practices are receiving about £650million extra a year as they receive about £130 for every patient registered.

TRENDING

Stories

Videos

Your Say

The gap of almost five million registrations has raised fresh questions about whether NHS records are keeping pace with patients who die, move home, relocate for work, go to university, or emigrate.

While the figures do not prove five million patients do not exist, they have reignited concerns about waste, outdated systems and whether NHS funding is always following patients accurately.

Professor Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, said the problem was a symptom of a primary care model designed decades ago when records were held on paper and most patients remained with the same family doctor for years.

He believes the answer lies not in repeated administrative exercises but in modernising the way primary care works.

He said patients should increasingly be able to access routine care where it is most convenient rather than being tied to a single surgery.

He told GB News: “We need to overhaul the GP system. If a patient needs an appointment, they don’t necessarily need to see a specific GP, and GPs can access each other’s GP records now.

“The ghost patients are a symptom of a system that is failing.

“It’s like taking your car to a garage for an MOT. You shouldn’t have to go to a specific garage. All the details should be on the system and the money should follow the patient.

“The system was set up in the days when there were paper records and this is no longer appropriate. Students go home in the summer, people move regularly for work and you should be able to go to the GP where you want.

“We can do blood pressure checks and many things serving customers and they shouldn’t have to go to their own GPs. This is not what happens if you turn up to A&E. You don’t get told to go back to your local A&E where you live. If we are to be putting the patient first this is what we should be doing,” he said.

He added: “It is a symptom of a failing system and if this was a private company it wouldn’t tolerate this level of dysfunctionality together with huge waiting lists. Which business would tolerate this?”

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:

• Toddler, 3, in stable condition after being 'thrown' into crocodile enclosure
• Met Office issues rare red weather warning as parts of Britain set to see near-record breaking heat
• Britons come together to honour sacrifice of serving and former personnel in Armed Forces Week

And an NHS advisor, who preferred not to be named said: “This is not just about GP practices, but the whole NHS system which is working with many databases that are not able to communicate with each other.

“We are in 2026 and working with technology as advanced as the abacus and the printing press. And while this is not easy to fix, digital progress should be a priority in the NHS because the failings in the system is costing money and ultimately costing lives when patients are not followed up properly.”

The comments come as the British Medical Association accused NHS England of carrying out an increasingly aggressive “list cleansing” exercise aimed at removing patients who may no longer be registered at practices.

The union claims surgeries are now being instructed to remove patients if they fail to respond to letters or other contact attempts within three months rather than the previous six-month period.

GP leaders say the process has already reduced practice lists by more than 300,000 patients over the past year, costing surgeries almost £40million in funding.

Dr Chand Nagpaul, a GP and former Chair of the Council of the British Medical Association, warned there is a high risk genuine patients are being removed by mistake.

He said older people, those with learning disabilities, people living in houses of multiple occupancy and patients whose first language is not English could be particularly vulnerable if they fail to respond to correspondence in time.

Successive governments have spent billions attempting to modernise NHS technology. Yet experts say the health service still relies on a patchwork of systems developed by different organisations over many decades.

The NHS App has become the digital front door for millions of patients and ministers are pursuing plans for a future Single Patient Record.

However, experts say significant challenges remain in ensuring records are accurate and consistently updated across the system.

An NHS England spokesman said: “It is important that funding follows patients, rather than practices receiving money for patients no longer registered or living in England.

“NHS England has always worked with GP practices to regularly review their lists and improve their accuracy, with robust checks to ensure people are not removed inappropriately and patients contacted before any action is taken - ensuring money and staff time is not wasted on activity like unnecessary vaccination recalls.”

Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter