Registration for 2013/14, worth up to £850 a practice, recouped only half of the amount the CQC estimated it would cost to regulate primary care.
The regulator has launched a consultation on hiking the fees by 2.5% next year and confirmed plans to raise fees further in future to recover the full cost of regulating general practice from GPs.
Professor Field said that his inspection teams with be ‘loaded with GPs’, with inspection pilots beginning in December.
GPC deputy chairman Dr Richard Vautrey said any registration fee rise was unacceptable.
‘There is no justification for a rise when general practice is facing unfunded rising expenses that are leading to resource cuts,' he said.
‘GPs will be angry but not surprised that yet again they are expected to foot an even bigger bill to pay for being regulated and at the same time have to cope with the extra workload that regulation brings.
‘The threatening comments GPs will have heard about CQC's approach to GP inspections, and the uncritical support CQC have offered to political pronouncements about things such as opening 8-8 seven days a week, a policy which could undermine the quality of care if current services are spread more thinly, will not fill GPs with confidence that CQC independence will make any material difference.’
The new powers would mean that the CQC would no longer have to receive the health secretary’s approval to carry out an investigation into a hospital or care home. It will also remove the health secretary’s power to direct the CQC on the content of its annual report.
