With plans for the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to work towards covering the cost of its own regulation ‘over a reasonable period of time’, GP practices fear that their own fees to the regulator could double.

The CQC is currently more than half funded by the Government’s grant-in-aid and gets the balance in fees from healthcare providers, with a single GP practice paying between £516 and £948, while those with multiple locations pay between £1,341 and £16,759.

The regulator’s total revenue budget for this tax year is £233m, of which £4m is allocated for Healthwatch England. This is funded solely from a combination of the Government’s grant and income from providers’ fees.

As part of this budget, the providers’ CQC fees contribute £113m, which represents a rise of £10m compared with the previous year, while the Government’s grant of £120m over this period is same as the previous year.

According to a spokesman for the General Practitioners’ Committee (GPC), it is “unacceptable” that GP practices should have to foot the bill for a regulatory system. He added that if the regulator tries to increase fees to GP practices, it will cause “further detriment to patient services” and will further impact on GPs’ ability to provide patient care.

CQC fees rose by 9 per cent at the start of this tax year, which is likely to add around £60 to the bill of an average practice. However, the increase is likely to be more substantial in future, as a CQC regulatory fees document published earlier this year stated that the body needs to achieve a ‘higher recovery on fees’ as its current position is ‘not sustainable’ under Treasury requirements.

The CQC will carry out a public consultation on its fees for 2016/17 later this year.