GP funding model should change to deliver population health, says think tank

A radical restructuring of the NHS budget to deliver prevention based healthcare using a “national health insurance” model has been proposed by an influential think tank.

The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) suggests gathering population level health data, storing it centrally, using it to understand population health, and allocating NHS budget based on those data, instead of the current allocation on a per person basis.

In a paper released on 30 August1 TBI suggested the Department of Health and Social Care use “anonymised and securely held” patient data to make “predictions about future disease risks and outcomes to maximise healthy life expectancy.”

It suggests replacing the current Carr-Hill formula—which allocates funds to GP practices based on an estimate of patient workload—with a national health insurance model, still free at point of use and taxpayer funded, but where data provided by health trusts or from …