Contract negotiations – next steps
It has been a hectic few weeks with your GPC England officer team completing contract negotiations with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care. For the past six weeks we have been meeting regularly to look at how the GP contract will change from April 2025. This was on the back of the announcement by Secretary of State Wes Streeting MP of additional investment into general practice for the forthcoming contractual year.
The next step is for GPC England to meet on Thursday 27 February where the officer team will outline the contract proposals, and a full discussion and debate will occur. GPC England is the nationally recognised body that oversees contract negotiations and have the authority to agree, reject or ask for changes to any contract proposal. It will be a full day of discussion, and we will let you know the outcome of any decision as soon as possible.
Plenty of other work has continued during this time including meetings with the RCGP, the Royal College of Nursing, pharmacy colleagues and many others to progress with our aim to make general practice a well-resourced and better place to work in the coming years. As ever, thank you for all you do day to day in such challenging circumstances. We are totally committed to make your day-to-day life better for you, your team and for the patients we all look after.
Dr David Wrigley
GPC England deputy chair
Email: dwrigley@bma.org.uk
February 2025 collective action tracker survey
The February collective action tracker survey opened on Monday 17 February and will remain open for two weeks, closing on 2 March at 5pm. Your response to this is hugely helpful to us and we would ask you take a few minutes to complete it.
Is your practice taking part in collective action? We encourage all GP partners or practice managers to share their experiences by completing this short survey. No identifiable data will be created as a result of this survey.
We continue to produce guidance around collective action, with the latest being guidance on how secondary care colleagues may be affected and ways they can support GPs in this campaign.
Please refer to our Safe Working Guidance Handbook and the BMA’s GP campaign webpage for more information. We appreciate your participation in collective action.
Special England LMC Conference 2025
The Special LMC Conference will be held on Wednesday 19 March 2025 at Friends House, London. The day will start at 10.00am and finish at 5.00pm. LMCs may wish to bear this in mind when arranging transport and accommodation.
This Special Conference was called at the 2024 Annual Conference of England LMCs. Under Standing Order 2 the only business to be considered will be “to discuss and determine what escalatory steps will be needed to ensure the survival of what still remains of English general practice”.
The deadline for registration has now passed. If you have any questions, please email info.lmcconference@bma.org.uk.
GP unemployment crisis
Despite the rising demand for family doctors to provide care, a Kafkaesque situation now exists in which a significant number of highly skilled GPs are struggling to secure work.
The BMA’s UK Sessional GP Committee surveyed salaried and locum members to help highlight this pressing and absurd situation of the growing unemployment/underemployment crisis among GPs. The survey closed on Monday and the results will be shared in due course.
Last week, we held a virtual rally to address the urgent issue of sessional GP unemployment.
If you missed the rally, you can watch the recording here.
Maternity leave
We are thrilled to announce a significant enhancement to maternity leave benefits for salaried GPs, following a recent unanimous vote by GPC UK. The number of weeks at half pay for maternity leave will increase from 14 weeks to 18 weeks. This change aligns maternity leave provisions with those of hospital doctors and ensures salaried GPs are no longer at a detriment to their hospital-based colleagues.
We have produced guidance, resources and template letters to aid the implementation of this change. The new maternity leave benefits are as follows:
· 8 weeks of full pay, less any SMP (statutory maternity pay) or MA (maternity allowance) receivable, including any dependants’ allowances.
· 18 weeks of half pay, rather than 14 weeks, plus any SMP or MA receivable, ensuring the total does not exceed full pay.
13 weeks at SMP or MA, as entitled under the statutory scheme.
This change was made possible thanks to the unity and collective resolve of our profession.
By implementing this new maternity leave pay change, we're not just helping individuals, but also strengthening our profession. These enhanced benefits reflect our commitment to supporting salaried GPs throughout their working lives.
Next Steps: We recommend all practices discuss these changes with their salaried GPs. Following which, we recommend that a contract variation letter is issued to each salaried GP to reflect these changes. Further information and the relevant contract variation letters can be found on our website.
We recommend that you make these changes before 1 April 2025, but we encourage all practices to make these changes as soon as possible, to ensure that no salaried GPs miss out.
Spending review
The BMA recently submitted its representation to the Department for Health and Social Care for the Comprehensive Spending Review, setting the case for sustained investment. The BMA advocated for a 4.2% average annual increase in the day-to-day spending budget of DHSC, with funding reserved to deliver an uplift in the GP Practice core funding (Global Sum) by at least £40 per patient per year, amounting to £2.5 billion extra per year. In addition, the BMA also called on the government to build on the capital investment announced in the most recent budget and increase capital spending by a further £3.3 billion in real terms per year, to help deliver needed improvements to the primary care estate. The full submission can be accessed on the BMA website.
GPC England regional elections
The BMA GP Committee for England will be seeking nominations for voting members of the committee for the 2024-2027 sessions, as regional representatives for the following constituencies:
· Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire
· Hertfordshire
· North and South Essex
· Barking & Havering, Redbridge & Waltham Forest and City & Hackney
· Cumbria and Lancashire
· Wigan & Bolton, Bury & Rochdale and West Pennine
· South & West Devon and Kernow
· Hampshire and Isle of Wight
· Kent
· Surrey and Croydon
· East Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and Lincolnshire
· Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield
Nominations will open on 7 March 2025 at 12pm and close on 21 March 2025 at 12pm.
If you have any questions or require assistance, please contact elections@bma.org.uk.
For more information about BMA elections please go to https://www.bma.org.uk/elections.
Special Rules for end of life benefits (SREL)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has released an online service for the SR1 form.
Healthcare professionals can support a patient’s benefit claim made with the Special Rules by completing an SR1 form. Once submitted, this tells DWP that a patient might be eligible for financial support as they may have less than 12 months to live.
The service aims to:
· Support GPs to complete and submit the form by providing an online option to current paper and email processes
· remove the need to create usernames and passwords
· allow completed forms to be downloaded and saved
· reduce time to complete a form with the ability to skip optional questions
· include clear and relevant guidance for specific questions
· increase the accessibility for people who use assistive technology to complete tasks
If you have any questions or problems using the service, email DWP at online.sr1@dwp.gov.uk
GPCE Guidance, media and contacts
- Guidance for GP collective action for Sessional GPs and GP registrars
- Downloadable waiting room/website videos and infographics for practices.
- Campaign materials (patient leaflets, lanyards, badges, window stickers) on the BMA rep Hub
- Read more about the work of GPC England and practical guidance for GP practices
- See the latest update on X @BMA_GP and read about BMA in the media
- Contact us: info.lmcqueries@bma.org.uk
Read the latest GPCE bulletin: https://bma-mail.org.uk/t/cr/AQiEtRUQn_gYGOHMsxfCw1mJQ0XyOY89cWX8xJ0PzOSo1aNOfU49kMuL1wZM3g
Dr David Wrigley
GPC England deputy chair
Email: dwrigley@bma.org.uk
Email: info.lmcqueries@bma.org.uk (for LMC queries)
Email: info.gpc@bma.org.uk (for GPs and practices)
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