Ramsay Brown Profits Comparison 2009/10 and 2010/11

A review of the profits for GMS and PMS practices for the year ended 31 March 2011 and a comparison to the year ended 31 March 2010 makes interesting reading. A summary of the results is shown in the box below.

	Year ended 31/3/10	Year ended 31/3/11
Profits per FT GMS GP	£128,580	£125,040
Profits per FT PMS GP	£156,694	£142,980
Core NHS income per GMS patient	£70.13	£69.96
Core NHS income per PMS patient	£92.15	£89.77
Average GMS List size per FT principal	2663	2441
Average PMS List size per FT principal	2624	2585
%age of income spent on salaried GPs and locums in GMS practice	10.75%	10.54%
%age of income spent on salaried GPs and locums in PMS practice	17.07%	17.78%

The review is based on 635 full time equivalent GP partners with a year end of 31 March. Unsurprisingly both GMS and PMS partners have seen their profits fall, with GMS partners seeing their profits fall by 2.75% and PMS partners seeing their profits fall by 8.75%. The reason for the faster fall in PMS practice profits will be the effect of the reduction in baselines, nevertheless, PMS GPs still earn on average 14.34% more than their GMS colleagues. This discrepancy is likely to diminish as PMS reviews continue and with the eventual implementation of a new contract possibly in 2014.

The reason for the discrepancy in profits between the PMS and GMS principals is easy to see, it is the additional funding that the PMS are provided with. It is true that PMS practices use the additional funds to pay for extra clinical help, but there is still an overall increase in their profits

Of course it should be borne in mind when comparing these figures to other professions to remember that the profits include the employer’s superannuation. Removing this factor reduces the profits for a GMS principal for the year ended 31 March 2011 to £109,684 and £125,421 for a PMS principal.

It is interesting to note that the list sizes for both GMS and PMS principals fell in the year to 31 March 2011. Now this could be because they all took on new partners, but that is unlikely, the most probable cause is the list cleaning exercises undertaken by PCTs

What about the future? The pay rise for all GPs for 2011/12 was insignificant, VAT has increased by 2.5%, costs generally are increasing at a prohibitive rate, and those savings that could have been made have most probably already been made. The future does not look promising for GPs profits