GPs and practices will receive an ‘extra’ £889 million as part of the 2025/6 contract announced today after an ‘emergency’ meeting, the BMA reports.
GPs will now be included within the main Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS), and the cap on the number of GPs that can be employed through ARRS will be removed. ARRS will continue to be limited to those within two years of their CCT date and who have not been previously substantively employed as a GP in general practice.
On the Today programme this morning, General Practitioners’ Committee chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer welcomed the funding but warned that it was too late for the ‘thousands’ of GPs who had already left.
“The first green shoots of recovery will be when we start to see a fall in the number of practices being forced to close,” she said. “We’ve lost one in four over the last 15 years. We’ve lost thousands of GPs.”
Dr Steve Taylor, spokesperson for the Doctor’s Association UK, also welcomed the contract but warned that much of the increase in funding would be lost to the new costs of National Insurance facing practices following the Autumn Statement, as well as staffing and costs.
Dr Richard Fieldhouse, NASGP chair, said: “This boost in funding for general practice in England is hopefully enough for practices to confidently change up a gear, and leave behind most of the constraints that came with the original ARRS funding.
“But this change in gear is really only going to help us catch up to where we should have been years ago; general practice is still in the slow lane, and this funding is still nowhere near enough what we need to tackle decades of under investment. It’s a great start, and hats off to the BMA for striking this deal.
“Once the dust has settled, and confidence restored, practices will want to see much more investment, coupled with longer-term commitments to funding. We’re calling for all red tape removed from ARRS funding to support flexible hiring of GP locums, better, bigger premises, and proper career and workforce support to significantly improve workload and return the joy to being a GP again.”