Deprivation at GP practice level
Next update expected:July 2027
Updates
- 30th June 2026
New data added for April 2026 – which is now based on WIMD 2025.
- 19th June 2026
In the April 2024 data, both W93125 and W93061 have the same number of patients living in the most deprived 20% of WIMD. Previously, they were assigned arbitrarily to practice deprivation quintiles 5 and 4, respectively. The methodology has now been revised so that the practice with more patients living in the second most deprived WIMD quintile is assigned the higher deprivation ranking (i.e. more deprived quintile). W93125 has a higher number of patients in WIMD quintile 2 than W93061. Therefore W93125 has been reassigned to practice deprivation quintile 4 and W93061 to quintile 5.
Previously the wrong practice deprivation quintile was shown for some practices in the April 2024 data. The 'practice deprivation quintile' values have now been corrected as follows:
For the method ‘percentage of the practice population in the most deprived 20% of WIMD’: for W97024 quintile 4 is now shown rather than quintile 5 and for W98044 quintile 2 is now shown rather than quintile 1.
For the method ‘number of the practice population in the most deprived 20% of WIMD’: for W93125 quintile 4 is now shown rather than quintile 5 and for W97611 quintile 2 is now shown rather than quintile 1.
- 15th May 2026
- Dataset first published.
Main information
- Designation
- Official statistics
- Data provider 1
- Welsh Government
- Data source 1
- Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD)
- Data provider 2
- NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership
- Data source 2
- Contractor Services
- Time period covered
- January 2022 to April 2026
- Dataset ID
- 97175678-3003-43f1-b39a-33503c2ef989
Overview
- Summary of dataset and variables
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 or calculation
WIMD 2025 is used for determining the most deprived 20% of areas in Wales for data from April 2026 onwards. For reference periods before this, data are based on WIMD 2019.
Data for practice populations refer to January 2022 and April for subsequent years.
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.
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) 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:
- The number of patients registered to the general practice who live in the most deprived 20% of areas in Wales.
- The percentage of each general practice population that live in the most deprived 20% of areas in Wales.
The practice population data for 2023-2025 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 2023-2025 practice populations to the 2011 LSOAs and this resulted in a small number of patients not being matched.
April 2026 data: There were 368 general practices. As 368 is not divisible into a whole number by five, the quintiles do not contain the exact same number of practices. There are 74 practices for quintiles 1,3 and 5 and 73 practices for the remaining quintiles. Quintiles are used to analyse broadly similar groups of practices, with practice quintile 1 containing the 74 practices with the most deprived populations in Wales.
April 2025 data: There were 370 general practices. These practices were ranked in terms of the relative deprivation of their registered patients and split evenly into quintiles containing 74 practices each. Quintiles are used to analyse broadly similar groups of practices, with practice quintile 1 containing the 74 practices with the most deprived populations in Wales.
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 75 practices for quintiles 1 and 5 and 74 practices for the remaining quintiles. Quintiles are used to analyse broadly similar groups of practices, with practice quintile 1 containing the 75 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.
- Statistical quality
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, 49 patients in the April 2024 data, 1,077 in the April 2025 data and 128 patients in the April 2026 data.
Published by
- Organisation
- Welsh Government
- Contact email
- stats.healthinfo@gov.wales