Primary care funding entrenches health inequalities: time for a rethink

Fifty years since the term was first used to describe the mismatch between healthcare provision and healthcare need, the inverse care law is alive and well. Coined by Julian Tudor Hart, a GP in a coal-mining community in south Wales, the term was a clever pun on the inverse square law. And it has stuck ever since. Although primary care in 2021 has changed beyond recognition since 1971. one factor remains largely unchanged and it is a factor that perpetuates disparity. The funding of primary care is still largely based on capitation payments together with the more recent addition of target-based pay-for-performance rewards.