What is Out of area?
GP practices in UK have a defined geographical area locally (similar to catchment area for schools) from which patients are allowed to register to the Practice. This can vary between practices and can overlap between practices in urban areas.
Some practices have opted to have patients outside their local area since 2020, but patients in such scheme are not eligible for home visits from the GP Surgery. These GP Surgeries are paid differently from patients from the local area. Unfortunately the Staffordshire and SoT ICB (Integrated Care Board) have not offered this service to us.
I have been in this house for a few years. Why have I been asked to find a new GP now?
We have not asked patients outside our practice area to find a new GP for a little while especially during the COVID pandemic and the consequent difficulty for patients to find a new GP Surgery.
The Integrated care board have advised us to periodically check and remove patients from outside our practice area.
I know of someone who lives near our house who is still registered to your Surgery. Why I am asked to move?
The practice area map boundaries may mean some patients in nearby area may still be in our catchment area.
We are working our way through the list of patients who are outside our area. So some may not have been advised yet.
Also we keep some patients in our list even outside our practice area at our discretion eg. Terminally ill with cancer. We will not be able to explain individual exceptions due to patient confidentiality.
How do I find the local GP surgery which covers my house?
The best options is to use the NHS webpage to find local GP`s and then contact them and see (please note this may not be always accurate and some practices may not be taking new patients and hence it is important to contact the practice and find out)
I don’t like/cannot register with a local Practice. What do I do?
There are some practices which may be able to take patients outside their defined area. You may not be able to have home visits from the practice (if indicated) and it is up to the discretion of the practice to register a patient from outside their defined area.
Registering with a GP surgery outside your local area – NHS (www.nhs.uk)
