Salaried GPs have been given a 4% pay award for 2025/26, below RPI inflation, which the BMA has called an ‘insult’.
Accountants have warned that GP practices will need an extra £100m to deliver this uplift, GP Online has reported.
“Government’s message to doctors is clear: we do not need you, we do not want to keep you, and we do not value the huge efforts you go to looking after patients every day,” BMA representatives wrote in a message to members on the issue.
Resident doctors (formally junior doctors) have been balloted on strike action following their pay award.
Dr Richard Fieldhouse, NASGP chair, wrote: “At a time when the government is relying on the NHS getting those on sick leave back into the workforce in order to invigorate the economy, it’s deeply disappointing to see them reneging on their commitment to pay doctors properly to enable them to do this.
Instead, not only are they offering what is effectively a pay cut for salaried GPs , they’re not putting in the money into general practice to cover these pay rises.
“Although I have sympathy with the government in terms of it needing to make tough financial decisions at the moment, a promise is a promise, and the BMA’s action is wholly justified in light of the government’s broken promise.
“Winding back to the resolution of the resident doctors’ industrial action last September, the good will generated from this proved to be a worthy investment by the government, so any return to this would be a deeply regrettable failure to learn from history.”