This shows the number of people registered to each GP practice in Wales (the practice population). It also shows the number and percentage of patients registered to each practice who live in the most deprived 20% of areas according to the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) and the practice deprivation quintile. Two methods for calculating the practice deprivation quintile are included.
Data collection and calculation
Practice population data is provided by NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership and is a snapshot taken at a single point in time. The resident lower layer super output areas (LSOAs) of patients registered to each general practice were matched to the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2019 to count the number of patients who live in the most deprived 20% of LSOAs as determined by their WIMD ranking. General practices were then ranked based on two measures to estimate deprivation at general practice level. These were: 1) The number of patients registered to the general practice who live in the most deprived 20% of areas in Wales. 2) The percentage of each general practice population that live in the most deprived 20% of areas in Wales.
The practice population data for 2023 onwards used in the deprivation analysis will not necessarily match the published practice population data for the same period. The published data uses the latest 2021 LSOA mappings, however as the deprivation analysis relies on WIMD 2019 which uses 2011 LSOA mappings, the deprivation analysis also needed to match the 2023 onwards practice populations to the 2011 LSOAs and this resulted in a small number of patients not being matched.
April 2024 data: There were 372 general practices. As 372 is not divisible into a whole number by five, the quintiles do not contain the exact same number of practices. There are 76 practices for quintiles 1 and 5, 73 practices for quintiles 2 and 4 and 74 practices for the remaining quintile. Quintiles are used to analyse broadly similar groups of practices, with practice quintile 1 containing the 76 practices with the most deprived populations in Wales.
April 2023 data: There were 382 general practices. As 382 is not divisible into a whole number by five, the quintiles do not contain the exact same number of practices. There are 77 practices for quintiles 1 and 5 and 76 practices for the remaining quintiles. Quintiles are used to analyse broadly similar groups of practices, with practice quintile 1 containing the 77 practices with the most deprived populations in Wales.
January 2022 data: There were 390 general practices. These practices were ranked in terms of the relative deprivation of their registered patients and split evenly into quintiles containing 78 practices each. Quintiles are used to analyse broadly similar groups of practices, with practice quintile 1 containing the 78 practices with the largest populations living in the most deprived areas in Wales.
WIMD 2019 is used for determining the most deprived 20% of areas in Wales. Data for practice populations refer to January 2022 and April for subsequent years.
Users, uses and context
The purpose of these data are to provide options for analysing the relative deprivation of the population registered to each general practice in Wales. Determining which measure is most appropriate to use depends on the purpose of what the measure will be used for. It is recommended to use ‘number’ measures when targeting the greatest number of people living in deprived areas, whereas it is more appropriate to use the ‘percentage’ measures when targeting the highest concentration of people living in deprived areas. While the results at practice and cluster level are broadly similar, the practice level data will provide a more granular analysis of deprivation. Clusters group practices, so while some may broadly serve similar populations, inevitably there will be some practices which have a more deprived population than others, in the same cluster. Clusters analysis may be most appropriate when targeting broader areas, but some more detailed insight may be masked when aggregating data for individual practices.
The data used in these tables is of good coverage and quality. All GP practices with General Medical Services (GMS) contracts at the time of data extraction are included. Practice population data is available for all practices. A small percentage of data was not included in the analysis. As WIMD is a deprivation measure relative to Wales only, English residents could not be included in the model. As we have data collected for Welsh general practices collected on a consistent basis, English practices are not included, and therefore any Welsh residents registered to English practices will not be included. For context, in the April 2024 extract there were 21,067 patients registered to Welsh general practices who resided in England, and there were 13,339 patients registered to English general practices who resided in Wales. Where a patient resides in England but is registered to a Welsh general practice, they are also removed from that practice’s population list size in this analysis, to not skew the percentage of patients living in deprived areas calculation. Patients registered to non-GMS practices and are also not included in the analysis. Patients registered to Welsh practices who had missing LSOA data, are also excluded from the analysis; there were 108 patients in the January 2022 data, 43 patients in the April 2023 data and 49 patients in the April 2024 data.
Deprivation at GP practice level
