Five hundred thousand patients registered at inadequate GP practices

Analysis of data released by NHS England and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) shows that almost five hundred thousand patients in England are registered to “inadequate” GP practices.

The CQC defines GP practices as inadequate (overall) if they are “performing badly and [the CQC has] taken action against the person or organisation that runs it”.

There are 55 GP practices given an overall inadequate rating by the CQC in July 2024. In total, 497,172 patients were registered to these practices in May 2024.

In total, the CQC rates 1% of GP practices in England as “inadequate”, while 5% are rated “requires improvement”, 86% are rated “good” and 5% are rated “outstanding”. 4% have no rating.

A further 21 GP practices are rated inadequate in at least one of the CQC’s subcategories of: safe, well led, caring, responsive and effective.

Better alternatives?

Of the 55 GP practices rated inadequate, all 55 have an alternative GP practice rated either “good” or “outstanding” within 5 miles. In other words, five hundred thousand patients are registered to an inadequate GP practice, while having a good or better alternative within 5 miles. 

Even reducing the radius to just 2 miles, for 51 out of the 55 practices there is a “good” or “outstanding” alternative, representing 437,559 patients.

Notably though, not all GP practices will accept new patients due to capacity constraints, or when they are, they may restrict patients to a very defined area.

Patient care and patient satisfaction

Our analysis shows that there is a clear link between the CQC‘s care quality rating and patient satisfaction, as well as the number of patients per full-time equivalent (FTE) GP.

For GP practices rated “inadequate”, the weighted average percentage of patients describing their overall experience at the GP practice as “good” is 59%, per the 2024 GP Patient Survey. This compares to 79% for practices rated “outstanding”.

Similarly, GP practices rated “inadequate” have an average of 2,901 patients per FTE GP, versus 2,152 for “good” practices and 1,653 for practices rated “outstanding”.