Information published is derived from the National Health Application and Infrastructure Services (NHAIS) system, Family Practitioner Services (FPS) system and payment records including Global Sum Payment, and the Common Practitioner Model (CPM). It includes information on the number of General Practitioners (GPs), GP Practices and registered patients in Northern Ireland including registration activity and payments processed by BSO towards the overall cost of GP Services. There is no information relating to the treatment of patients or the waiting times associated with GP surgeries.
Responsible Statistician
Gerard McMullan
Gerard.McMullan@hscni.net
Current Annual Publication
Date Published: 4th June 2026
Date of next release: June 2027
The statistics will be released on this page at 9.30am. If you have issues accessing the information, it can also be found on gov.uk site.
Presents information on patients, General Practitioners and GP Surgeries in Northern Ireland. Also included is information relating to the number of new patient registrations processed, including those of a non-UK origin.
Family Practitioner Services GMS Statistics for Northern Ireland 2025/26
Revision Notice: GMS 2025/26 Annual Statistics
Date 16th June 2026
Following publication of the 2025/26 Annual GMS Official Statistics, a methodological issue was identified affecting the calculation of Average BSO Payments per Registered Patient. All relevant figures have been revised today.
Issue identified
When GP practices transfer to management by a Health and Social Care Trust, the Business Services Organisation (BSO) no longer makes payments to those practices. However, the registered patient populations for these practices were retained in the denominator, resulting in a mismatch between numerator and denominator and a downward bias in average payment estimates.
Action taken
To ensure a consistent and unbiased measure, revisions:
Excluded all payments to practices under Trust management for part or all of the year from the numerator
Excluded Trust-managed GP practice populations from the denominator
Impact
Affected data for 2022/23 to 2025/26.
Nine GP practices were included in scope, having been managed by a Health and Social Care Trust for part of the period.
Total payments for Northern Ireland, and relevant Local Commissioning Groups (LCGs), Local Government Districts (LGDs) and Federations reduced where payment was made to practices by BSO for part of the year, when the practices were not managed by a Trust.
Northern Ireland averages increased as a result of the revision along with averages for LCGs, LGDs and Federations relating to impacted Practices.
Impact was restricted to specified geographies; all others remained unaffected.
At Northern Ireland level, the revised average payment per patient for 2025/26 is £188, compared with the previously reported figure of £184, an increase of 2.2%. The total BSO payment reduced by £0.5m to £382.8m (0.1%).
At Local Commissioning Group (LCG) level, two areas were affected, with revised average payments per patient increasing from £189 to £206 in the Western LCG (9.0%), and from £173 to £179 in the Southern LCG (3.5%).
At Local Government District (LGD) level, three areas were affected, with the average payment per patient increasing by £33 (19.0%) to £207 in Fermanagh and Omagh, by £16 (8.8%) to £197 in Newry, Mourne and Down, and by £10 (5.1%) to £208 in Derry City and Strabane.
At GP Federation level, three Federations were affected, with the average payment per patient increasing by £7 (3.5%) in Derry, £18 (10.5%) in Newry and District and £32 (18.2%) in South West.
Revisions to payment data from 2022/23 onwards are provided in the Annex Tables.
Outputs affected
Annual GMS Statistics Tables
Table 6.1 (LCG), Table 6.2 (LGD) and Table 6.3 (Federation) from 2022/23 to 2025/26.
A full list of the areas affected is provided in the Annex Tables.
Family Practitioner Services GMS Statistics for Northern Ireland 2025/26
Key Facts payment bullet point
Figures 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and associated commentary – geographies as listed in Annex Tables only and detailed in Data Revision note.
Family Practitioner Services GMS Summary Key Facts 2025/26
Average payments per patient – Western and Southern LCGs only
Quarterly General Medical Services Statistics
Date Published: 4th June 2026
Date of next release: August 2026
The statistics will be released on this page at 9.30am. If you have issues accessing the information, it can also be found on the gov.uk site.
This quarterly series is a subset of the annual information with data provided for selected key tables. The quarterly updates within a year should be treated as provisional and may be revised when figures are finalised to produce the end of year annual report.
Quarterly GP Practice Reference Files
GP Practice lists are required by users of the GP Prescribing data so that the prescribing data can be standardised based on the size of the GP Practice. They were previously published following the release of the GMS official statistics.
This information is now contained within the Family Practitioner Service GMS Statistics spreadsheet under the Quarterly General Medical Services Statistics section above. Please navigate to Table 7.1 to obtain the numbers of patients registered with each practice on a quarterly basis.
Quality Documentation
Listed below are various documents to support the publication of FPS GMS Statistics.
FPS GMS Quality Assurance of Administrative Data Report
Previous publications
Previous publications can be found here.