Anger over £113-a-head subsidy for GP practice at Palace

The clinic caters for fewer than 300 live-in members of the Royal Household – including footmen, maids and butlers – compared to an average of more than 6,000 patients for regular GP surgeries.

The Queen and the rest of the Royal Family use a separate set of doctors.

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The extra funding came to light in a survey of 675 GP practices by the online magazine Health Service Journal.

It revealed that this year the Buckingham Palace surgery was due to get about £31,000 in National Health Service funding allocations and "minimum practice income guarantee" – equivalent to £113 for each of its 276 patients.

This compared with an average of £63 per patient across all of the doctors' surgeries surveyed.

Since the introduction of new GP contracts in 2004, the surgery has more than doubled its annual income from the NHS.

Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay demanded in Parliament an explanation as to why members of the Royal Household merited their own doctors' practice inside Buckingham Palace.

"I fail to see the justification for this practice," Mr Mackinlay said last night.

"It's a ridiculously small surgery and it's small because it's exclusive.

"It gets a disproportionate amount of public money but Joe Bloggs and other members of the general public can't join it.

"It's not as if this surgery even provides medical cover for the Queen.

"By comparison, we don't have a doctors' surgery at the House of Commons either for MPs or parliamentary staff."

Mr Mackinlay, the MP for Thurrock in Essex, claimed that although he had tabled a number of parliamentary questions about the exclusive practice, his enquiries had been stonewalled by the Department of Health – and Health Minister Ben Bradshaw appeared to have no knowledge of the surgery or its special arrangements.

In a parliamentary answer to Mr Mackinlay on March 26, Mr Bradshaw said: "The department is not aware of any special provision of primary health care service to staff of the Royal Households." The surgery is covered by an agreement with Westminster Primary Care Trust, which Department of Health sources say provides services "to staff that live within the confines of Buckingham Palace".

Members of the public can technically apply to join the surgery's patient list but practically speaking are unlikely to do so.

A spokesman for Westminster Primary Care Trust said: "The GP practice based at Buckingham Palace provides NHS medical care for staff at the Palace.

"The cost of providing the service is minimal to the PCT."

Buckingham Palace has declined to comment.