Personal Medical Service (PMS) Practices could be heading for losses of up to £400,000 over the next two years as a result of the reviews being held by NHS England area teams during this year and next, with many having to cut back on patient services and some even having to close.

A major review of contracts by NHS England earlier this year found substantial amounts of funding not linked with providing any additional services to patients above General Medical Services (GMS).

NHS England therefore wrote to all area teams to ask them to review all PMS contracts locally with the aim of ‘securing best value’ from PMS funding that is not tied to defined additional services or performance indicators.

The review found that overall, PMS practices are paid a ‘premium’ above equivalent GMS practices of £325m for England as a whole, equating to £13.52 above spending per patients registered with GMS practices.

Some practices therefore now face losses of £300,000 and £400,000 but even ‘average’ ones are preparing for losses of between £50,000 and £150,000 and will probably have to cut staff and services.

PMS practices make up around 40 per cent of all practices, looking after about 20 million patients, meaning that a huge number of patients could potentially be affected.

The review began in April this year and will continue until March 2016, with area teams being told to secure best value from investment of the “premium” element of PMS funding by ensuring that available resources for investment are deployed in line with the criteria set out in NHS England’s letter to them.

GPs are therefore being advised to take professional advice if they are offered a phase-out deal, as there is no way of knowing whether they will be offered a seven-year clawback or a three-year one.