Although NHS England promised to ‘stabilise core GP funding’ in its five-year plan, a leading official in the organisation has said that the ongoing funding withdrawals of minimum practice income guarantee (MPIG) and private medical services (PMS) funding will continue.

It is also likely that the Carr-Hill funding formula will remain as it is, despite pledges from the General Practitioners’ Committee (GPC) and NHS England to review the formula, which determines the core funding of practices.

When it was introduced over a decade ago, the Carr-Hill formula offered a new way of funding general practice. Before its introduction, a practice’s income was based largely on the number of patients and GPs at the surgery, with some adjustment for deprivation within the practice area.

However, the new system was based on evidence of practice workloads and was meant to be responsive to the needs of a practice’s population but, it was soon realised that in many cases the practice became financially unviable, relying on the MPIG to top up whatever the Carr-Hill formula decreed.

A spokesman for NHS England has justified the decision to continue with the withdrawal of the MPIG by saying that the organisation’s aim is to help GPs stabilise their human and financial resources to allow for a more detailed and strategic look at the future models of care.

He added that, at present, this has no direct impact on MPIG, as NHS England has already provided support to stabilise practices and said that there will be no further changes until the PMS reviews are concluded.

However, GP leaders are not comforted by this ‘stabilisation’, saying that they have been asking for a halt to the MPIG withdrawal for a long time and adding that it is unlikely that the review of Carr-Hill will lead to any major changes anyway.