Dear Colleagues,
Autumn Budget statement
This week’s budget announcement has left GP partners hugely concerned about the significant rise in employment costs from April 2025 and the impact this will have on their practice.
For many the cost of these changes to national insurance contributions and the lowering of the threshold will be a hammer blow to practice finances. Previously, these cost increases have been fully compensated, but Treasury officials have said there will be no reimbursement this time.
This is completely unacceptable and as a GP partner myself, I know how stressful and difficult announcements like this can be. We are NHS GPs and have been in partnerships since the inception of the NHS and all we are asking is to be treated like all other parts of the NHS who will see these costs reimbursed. We are not like traditional businesses who have shareholders or who can increase their costs when increased expenses arise, and we are making this quite clear to Government and their officials.
We need the Government to rapidly change its mind, and you can help us put pressure on it by writing to your local MP using our online tool >
The chancellor has publicly committed to ‘no reduction in spending powers across the NHS’, which, we have been told, includes NHS general practice. However, at the same time the Treasury has been saying that GP practices may not be compensated in full. We need clarity and certainty, not promises and conjecture.
We are on your side, and we are doing all we can to sort this problem out and make the Government see sense.
GPC England is due to meet on 14 November and the conference of England LMCs is taking place on 22 November, where discussions will be taking place on the flexibilities and asks within the £22bn headline budget figure, as well as the insufficient capital around estate and premises commitments. The team is aware of the concerns of practices and want to assure you that we have this at the top of our agenda.
Thank you to every practice now taking part in our collective action to protect our patients and practices. These actions have already, and will continue to, make a difference: they are safe, sustainable, and do not breach your contract. Most importantly, these actions are turning up the pressure on the Government to do the right thing for patients and general practice. We are the bedrock of the NHS, but our services have been driven to near collapse.
We need you to take action to protect our patients and protect our practices.
Focus on: patient appointmentsWe are producing more guidance around individual collective actions to support practices in undertaking specific actions. This week we are focusing on patient appointments.
Watch our collective action video on patient appointments >
This two-minute video shows GPC England colleagues’ views on this specific collective action. We are asking you to consider extending patient appointments to give patients more time to address their health concerns and create a sustainable working day for GPs and stop supporting the system at the expense of your patients, practice and staff.
The BMA’s GP campaign webpage has more information about all of the actions. Please also refer to our Safe Working Guidance handbook and other useful links such as the guidance for GP collective action, background to the 2024/25 contract changes, and infographics that can be downloaded and displayed in practices.
We want GPs to feel safe and empowered to take action that protects their patients and their practices.
Dr David WrigleyGPs committee England deputy chairinfo.gpc@bma.org.uk
