‘A comprehensive substantive longer term solution’ for unemployed and underemployed GPs could end collection action, the British Medical Association (BMA)’s General Practitioners Committee (GPC) has promised in a new document.
‘Patients First: Why general practice is broken & how we can fix it’ also calls on the Health Secretary and NHS England to commit to:
- Fully correcting CPI erosion on service tariffs and locum cover practice reimbursement payments.
- Bigger reimbursement payments in 2025/26 to enable recruitment of locums to cover periods of active recruitment to substantive posts, and in dealing with the hospital waiting list care backlog.
- Incentives to get GPs into rural posts.
- A new two-year fully-funded post-CCT fellowship scheme part-funded at practice level by a review of ARRS budgets.
- Supplementing the DDRB award for 2024/25 with urgent additional investment.
- Ringfenced funding to restore salaried GP pay.
- A new national direct enhanced service (DES) for child and adult safeguarding.
- Additional investment in the GP core contract with a core funding uplift of at least £40 per patient.
- The end of Extended Access (at PCN level).
Dr Richard Fieldhouse, NASGP chair, said: “The BMA has once again hit the nail on the head with this raft of small, easily-achievable solutions – each one a marginal gain – to a chronic problem that is otherwise not going away.
“Yes, extra money is needed to implement most of these, but the government knows the NHS needs more funding, and with the budget imminent, now is the right time to come up with solutions.
“Bigger reimbursements for practices to enable recruitment of locums to cover periods of active recruitment is a no-brainer, since it’s covering the costs of a vacant post and providing an opportunity for GP locums to explore taking up a substantive role at that practice.
“And incentives to get GPs into rural posts is not only going to help struggling communities, but also reduce the over-supply of GP locums that many big cities are facing.”