Announcement of methodological changes to Patients Registered at a GP Practice publication

Patients registered at a GP practice is a monthly publication showing counts of patients at NHS regions, Integrated Care Board (ICB), sub-ICB location, Primary Care Network (PCN) and GP practice by gender and age. In addition, data are presented by GP practice at Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) level by gender on a quarterly basis. The current data source for Patients Registered at a GP Practice is National Health Applications and Infrastructure Services (NHAIS) has been decommissioned.

The data source will change from NHAIS to Personal Demographics Service (PDS) from April 2024. There are no planned changes to the format of the publication documents. The LSOA mapping will also be updated from 2011 to 2021. Supporting documentation will be updated to inform about the differences between the data sources.

The first publication to be affected by this change will be the April 2024 release, which will cover the period 1 April 2024. For this release, the publication documents will be available from both data sources to allow comparison and transition. The May 2024 release will only include data from PDS

The impact of the above changes on Patients Registered at a GP Practice is expected to be minimal, there will a small difference in counts which may impact time series analysis. For users of the LSOA documents, there may be impact on data linkage or alignment between the 2011 and 2021 mapping from July 2024. We will consider how to minimise this impact.

Questions and feedback on the publication are welcomed and should be sent to [email protected] or alternatively call 0300 303 5678.