Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many GP surgeries in Sheffield, Heeley constituency will be affected by the phased withdrawal of the Minimum Practice Income Guarantee.

NHS England advises that 28 practices in Sheffield are affected by the withdrawal of the Minimum Practice Income Guarantee (MPIG).

The MPIG was introduced as part of the 2004 General Medical Services (GMS) contract as a temporary top-up payment to some general practitioner (GP) practices to smooth the transition to new funding arrangements. In the GP contract settlement in 2013, the Government decided to phase out MPIG top-up payments over a seven-year period, starting from 1 April 2014. The MPIG payments are inequitable, because practices serving very similar populations get paid very different amounts of money per patient.

The funding released from MPIG over the seven years will be reinvested in the basic payments made to all GMS practices. For the majority of practices there will be a net gain in practice income. Making changes over this period will allow the minority of practices that lose funding to adjust gradually to a reduction in payments.

NHS England agreed to offer additional transitional support to some practices to help with this change. NHS England published criteria for assessing the eligibility of GP practices for support during 2014-15 and 2015-16, where they are losing £3 or more per head of weighted population per annum as a result of changes to GMS funding arrangements, and where there are high levels of need.