The recommended 6% uplift for salaried and partner GPs ‘goes nowhere near far enough’ to address the erosion of wages and funding for the profession, BMA council chair Professor Philip Banfield has said.
Prof Banfield commented: “GPs will be deeply disappointed that today’s announcement goes nowhere near far enough to tackle the erosion of practice finances over the past five years or unfettered expansion of unfunded work being dumped into general practice.”
The BMA understands that the recommended uplift is 4.1% inclusive of the 1.9% GPs received from core practice contracts from April.
Last April, NHS England warned the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB), who recommended the 6% uplift, not to increase GP pay by more than 2%.
Dr Mark Steggles, BMA sessional GP committee chair, added: “Pay erosion for employed GPs stood at up to 25% between 2008/09 and 2022/23, and a 6% award does not meaningfully address that. Colleagues feel undervalued, overworked and chronically underpaid.”
Dr Richard Fieldhouse, NASGP chair, said: “The arguments currently being used by the BMA to decry the DDRB’s recommended 6% uplift are inline with the same arguments the BMA used to push through a 22% pay rise for junior doctors last month.
“The government’s justification for the cost of their offer to junior doctors was that it was much cheaper to fund a pay rise than it was to suffer the costs of industrial action.
“While I don’t believe the BMA’s current strategy of GP collective action will garner as much media attention as the intermittent rolling strikes by junior doctors, this collective action is more sustainable and may pressure the government into further negotiations for a comparable pay raise.”