Guide · PDF · 32 pages

Reading a GP P&L Without Flinching.

Walks line by line through a UK general practice profit-and-loss statement.

What this Guide is for

A partnership-track GP joining a new practice gets handed a P&L at the diligence stage and is expected to form an opinion on it. A salaried GP considering a partnership offer is asked to read the accounts and ask questions. A new practice manager arrives in post and inherits a financial picture they need to brief the partners on. None of these people received any training in how to read a P&L. Most struggle privately for years.

This Guide closes that gap. It explains every line of a UK general practice P&L — what the number represents, what it doesn't, how the line is constructed, where the judgement calls hide, and what to ask when something looks odd. By the end, a reader can pick up a partnership candidate's accounts and tell the difference between a practice that is operating well and one that is being made to look that way.

What's inside

Eight chapters, structured to be read in order or used as reference.

The shape of a UK general practice P&L
Revenue: global sum, QOF, enhanced services, private fees
Staff costs: where the practice's biggest expense lives
Premises, supplies, and other operating costs
Depreciation, accruals, and the things that aren't cash
Reading the bottom line: profit per partner, distributable surplus, drawings
Where this breaks: the limits of a single year's P&L
What to ask: a list of questions for the accountant and the partners

How it reads

"A profit-and-loss statement is not, in any meaningful sense, a record of what happened. It is a description of what happened, filtered through a series of accounting choices that determine which numbers appear, which are buried, and which never appear at all."

— from Chapter 1, The shape of a UK general practice P&L

Who it's for

Salaried GPs evaluating a partnership offer. The Guide gives you the substrate to read the practice's accounts and ask substantive questions before you sign.
New partners in their first year. Reading your own practice's P&L is uncomfortable when you can't tell which lines are doing the work. This Guide makes that legible.
Practice managers arriving in post. Briefing partners on the practice's financial position requires understanding what they're looking at. The Guide is the fastest way to get there.
Trainee GPs thinking ahead. Starting to read accounts before you need to is much easier than starting when the partnership offer is on the table.

What's not in this Guide

It is a Guide, not regulated advice. It does not provide personalised financial, legal, or tax recommendations. Those require a qualified professional who knows your full circumstances. The guide's purpose is to make those conversations substantive rather than passive.

It focuses on UK clinical practice specifically — the regulatory and commercial environment of the UK.

What's related

The Practice P&L Sensitivity Tool — forward-models the same kind of P&L across three scenarios. £89.
The Practice P&L Diagnostic — runs three years of a practice's P&L through an anomaly detection framework. £89.