A consultation document released last week suggests that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) could increase its annual fees for GP inspections by more than 550 per cent within two years, meaning a hike of £15,000 for some practices.

In the paper, the CQC proposes a set of radical fee increases that will mean providers will cover the full costs of inspections, with one proposal calling on larger practices to pay £17,893 in 2017/18, compared with £2,681 this year.

Under the first proposal, small practices with up to 5,000 patents could see their fees increase from £616 to £2,187 in the next tax year and to £4,111 by the year after. Meanwhile, single location practices with between 5,000 and 10,000 patients would see a rise from £725 to £2,574 and £4,839 respectively. Finally, practices with more than five locations would see an increase from £2,681 this year to £9,518 and £17,893. This is tempered by the idea that the new fees will be implemented incrementally by 2019/20, but the second proposal would also see fees for all practices almost doubled in the first year.

The Department of Health (DH) has said that it will put £15m into the GP contract for next year to cover most of these costs, and will review future years’ costs but a spokesman for the General Practitioners’ Committee (GPC) has said it is concerned that this funding will not cover the huge increase in fees, which could be the ‘final straw’ for some practices.

The GPC is therefore demanding to see full details of the proposed £15m investment from the DH and the spokesman said he would prefer to see a reduction in CQC bureaucracy and costs so that their rate rise is neither needed nor necessary.