How LocumDeck’s Instant Book benefits GPs and practices

How do you negotiate pay as a GP locum? We’ve created a calculator to help you arrive at a ballpark figure taking into account covering your professional and personal running costs.

But in addition to your circumstances, there may be local factors at play which could influence your locum pay environment. If you’re new to an area or new to GP locuming, how do you work out what rates to charge?

Simply asking around is not option, with anti-competition laws being quite clear about the illegality of discussing rates with fellow GP locums.

Local factors that may affect how much GP locums charge

• Supply of locums – the more locums, the more potential for downward pressure on rates. We hear this from members in the more vibrant towns and cities, perhaps with a local GP training scheme that then attracts and retains lots of GPs to start out as locums.
• Presence of a dominant practice-facing online platform or agency. We hear from members that having one of these in your area can sometimes skew the pay and conditions of local independent locums in a downwards direction.

Sessional GP locum fees on LocumDeck

With LocumDeck’s Instant Book, the whole point is that you carefully pre-define your booking parameters for each practice, including the pay rate, in advance, and then publish your terms and availability and wait for bookings. So you can make calculated judgements about the pay you would like to receive and use Instant Book to do the talking for you. Bear in mind too that the Instant Book process itself will add to your ‘value’, as practices are being offered a speedy, transparent way of booking a GP – a task that might otherwise cost them significant workload and resources.

Discussing rates with colleagues: a guided approach

When it comes to setting your locum rates, it’s natural to seek advice and insights from your peers. However, it’s essential to navigate these discussions carefully to comply with competition law as outlined by the British Medical Association (BMA) and UK government regulations.

What’s permissible

According to the BMA’s updated guidance from last October, GP locums are allowed to discuss the rates they charge an existing employer for their services. This means it’s acceptable to share information in the context of what you personally charge for your work at a specific location. For example, you might say:

• “I work for a surgery in [X location] and I charge [£Y amount] per session.”

This approach allows for transparent sharing of individual experiences without influencing the decisions of others.

What to avoid

However, there are clear boundaries on what constitutes anti-competitive behaviour. Specifically, locums must not suggest or imply that others should adhere to a minimum rate. For instance, you should not say:

• “I work for [£Y amount] per session in [X area], and you or nobody else should work for any less than that amount.”

Such statements could be interpreted as an attempt to fix prices or influence the market unfairly, which is against competition law.

Government guidance

The UK Government’s website further emphasizes that discussing future pricing plans with other locums regarding what you’re going to charge practices is not permitted. This includes any form of agreement or understanding about setting a minimum or standard rate for services. For more details, please refer to the official guidance on anticompetitive activity.

Navigating the conversation

We encourage our locums to engage in open and honest discussions about their professional experiences, including the challenges and strategies around setting rates. However, it’s crucial to ensure these conversations do not cross into prohibited territory as defined by competition law. By focusing on personal experiences without prescribing actions for others, we can maintain a supportive community that respects legal guidelines.

For more information on setting your rates and ensuring compliance with competition laws, please refer to the BMA and UK Government resources. Following the above guidelines, GP locums can discuss rates on the NASGP Facebook Group.

Work out how much to charge for GP locum sessions on LocumDeck

• Add a local practice to your LocumDeck address book where you haven’t recently worked.
• Set a sessional/hourly rate for that practice at the level that you’d like to be booked at.
• Activate that practice for Instant Book.
• Add ‘Committed Availability’ to your LocumDeck calendar as far in advance as possible.
• As and when practices Instant Book you, you’ll soon be able to use your judgement if your rates are too high or two low, and you’ll be able to adjust your rates accordingly.

If you run this experiment for a range of practices and add availability over a range of periods in advance, you’ll soon start to build a picture of the local factors that may affect your rate decisions.

Our experience of using Instant Book is that once practices have used it, they return to it as their favoured booking method, further cementing its value to them. It is a win-win tool – locums have more control over their work and pay, whilst the practice saves significant resources in finding and directly booking locums.

Tips to finding jobs as a GP locum on LocumDeck

• Adding a photo of yourself helps practices recognise and book you for locum sessions.
• Help the practice manager by adding documentation and info about yourself in your Credentials area.
• You can upload your patient and colleague feedback surveys to increase your chance of getting booked.
• Highlight your GP locum experience or any special skills you have in the freetext Professional profile area.

Salaried GP

This will be stated in the written contract. The private fee can either be entirely subsumed within the normal, regular work of the salaried GP, or there could be a provision for private work to be undertaken over and above the their usual work, stating how much of the fee they receive (bearing in mind the practice’s overheads.

Locum GPs

For locum GPs, there is no issue as to whether or not a freelance GP can perform private work in a GP practice.

The practice and locum will need to agree beforehand whether their normal clinical caseload will contain private as well as NHS patients, with adequate time given for the private work in line with what other GPs in the practice would expect.

The practice and locum will also need to agree between them whether private work is charged at the same rate as NHS work.

In our experience, if private patients are seen within the usual agreed hours then the locum would not expect to be paid any extra. But if seen outside the usual agreed hours, the locum would expect to be paid the full private fee, with any practice overheads being offset by the additional service being offered by the locum. It makes the paperwork easier too.

If you are a self employed locum you can not claim Statutory Maternity pay but, if you’re eligible, you can claim standard-rate Maternity Allowance. You can claim as soon as you’ve been pregnant for 26 weeks, and payments can start 11 weeks before your baby is due.

Fill out the simple application form on the gov.uk website.

See also

More on paternity and maternity

If you’re a GP locum, you are self-employed and therefore are responsible for covering your own holiday and sickness pay. And maternity/paternity pay, redundancy (there will be times when you’re unemployed), tax, national insurance, travel – pretty much everything.

But that’s the choice you make when you’re a GP locum. That’s why you have to make sure that the rates you charge – and the insurance policies you purchase – cover these circumstances. There is a common misunderstanding that GP partners get holiday pay – they don’t. They instead pay a practice manager to spread their ‘drawings’ over the year.

Of course, as a GP locum, you could get holiday/sickness pay if you negotiated it into your terms and conditions. For that matter, you could even demand a case of wine for every week you work, but no practice in their right mind would want to take you on.

But if you’re doing a long-term locum e.g. for maternity leave, then it would be entirely reasonable for you to try and negotiate paid leave into your Terms and Conditions (though beware that the ‘counter-bid’ from the practice would probably be a reduced daily/weekly rate – as the other party, it’s entirely up to you what you agree to).

It’s all down to what you can negotiate. No harm in trying.

Read our FAQ for more: Am I entitled to sick pay?

Complete NASGP’s locum rates calculator to help you work out your baseline hourly or sessional locum rate. Once you’ve done this, you can then tailor the rate according to your experience, skills and different practices you work in.

VIEW LOCUM RATES CALCULATOR

Two main factors influence the rates you should charge GP practices as a GP locum: what seems fair, given the costs you incur, and the market rate for someone with your experience, providing the service you offer. All these things affect how much you can earn as a GP locum.

Our locum rates calculator covers the first of these, taking into account all the expenses you have to pay – such as professional memberships, NHS appraisal, and accountancy and tax advice.

The second factor – market rate – is more difficult to define. The BMA used to publish suggested rates, but no longer does this due to legal concerns about anti-competitive behaviour (see below).

Other factors affect rates too. These could include skills and experience, how much notice the GP locum gets before the practice books them, and local supply and demand. You’ll probably need to weigh up many influences when deciding your rate.

Join NASGP’s free three-month trial for news and advice on GP locum work.

How our locum rate calculator works

Read our full article for advice on how to decide your rates.

If it seems too difficult to balance all these factors – and you can’t ask other GP locums, given the legal difficulties of discussing rates with colleagues – you could base your rates on what you’d expect to earn for the same workload in a fairly paid salaried post. Include an allowance for your professional and personal running costs, and for leave (annual, sick and study) and this should help you arrive at a ballpark sessional or hourly rate. This is basically how our locum rates calculator works.

Usually it is a matter of personal preference whether you charge per session or per hour.

As a guide, 80% of sessions on LocumDeck are defined as ‘sessions’ rather than by the hour.

There is one situation on LocumDeck where it is definitely preferable to use a sessional rate which is if you are setting an All day session type and you are structuring this with morning and afternoon clinics and a break in the middle. In this case it is best to think of your “All day” rate so you are not charging the practice for your middle of the day break.

How do you negotiate pay as a GP locum? We’ve created a calculator to help you arrive at a ballpark figure taking into account covering your professional and personal running costs.

But in addition to your circumstances, there may be local factors at play which could influence your locum pay environment. If you’re new to an area or new to GP locuming, how do you work out what rates to charge?

Simply asking around is not option, with anti-competition laws being quite clear about the illegality of discussing rates with fellow GP locums.

Local factors that may affect how much GP locums charge

• Supply of locums – the more locums, the more potential for downward pressure on rates. We hear this from members in the more vibrant towns and cities, perhaps with a local GP training scheme that then attracts and retains lots of GPs to start out as locums.
• Presence of a dominant practice-facing online platform or agency. We hear from members that having one of these in your area can sometimes skew the pay and conditions of local independent locums in a downwards direction.

Sessional GP locum fees on LocumDeck

With LocumDeck’s Instant Book, the whole point is that you carefully pre-define your booking parameters for each practice, including the pay rate, in advance, and then publish your terms and availability and wait for bookings. So you can make calculated judgements about the pay you would like to receive and use Instant Book to do the talking for you. Bear in mind too that the Instant Book process itself will add to your ‘value’, as practices are being offered a speedy, transparent way of booking a GP – a task that might otherwise cost them significant workload and resources.

Discussing rates with colleagues: a guided approach

When it comes to setting your locum rates, it’s natural to seek advice and insights from your peers. However, it’s essential to navigate these discussions carefully to comply with competition law as outlined by the British Medical Association (BMA) and UK government regulations.

What’s permissible

According to the BMA’s updated guidance from last October, GP locums are allowed to discuss the rates they charge an existing employer for their services. This means it’s acceptable to share information in the context of what you personally charge for your work at a specific location. For example, you might say:

• “I work for a surgery in [X location] and I charge [£Y amount] per session.”

This approach allows for transparent sharing of individual experiences without influencing the decisions of others.

What to avoid

However, there are clear boundaries on what constitutes anti-competitive behaviour. Specifically, locums must not suggest or imply that others should adhere to a minimum rate. For instance, you should not say:

• “I work for [£Y amount] per session in [X area], and you or nobody else should work for any less than that amount.”

Such statements could be interpreted as an attempt to fix prices or influence the market unfairly, which is against competition law.

Government guidance

The UK Government’s website further emphasizes that discussing future pricing plans with other locums regarding what you’re going to charge practices is not permitted. This includes any form of agreement or understanding about setting a minimum or standard rate for services. For more details, please refer to the official guidance on anticompetitive activity.

Navigating the conversation

We encourage our locums to engage in open and honest discussions about their professional experiences, including the challenges and strategies around setting rates. However, it’s crucial to ensure these conversations do not cross into prohibited territory as defined by competition law. By focusing on personal experiences without prescribing actions for others, we can maintain a supportive community that respects legal guidelines.

For more information on setting your rates and ensuring compliance with competition laws, please refer to the BMA and UK Government resources. Following the above guidelines, GP locums can discuss rates on the NASGP Facebook Group.

Work out how much to charge for GP locum sessions on LocumDeck

• Add a local practice to your LocumDeck address book where you haven’t recently worked.
• Set a sessional/hourly rate for that practice at the level that you’d like to be booked at.
• Activate that practice for Instant Book.
• Add ‘Committed Availability’ to your LocumDeck calendar as far in advance as possible.
• As and when practices Instant Book you, you’ll soon be able to use your judgement if your rates are too high or two low, and you’ll be able to adjust your rates accordingly.

If you run this experiment for a range of practices and add availability over a range of periods in advance, you’ll soon start to build a picture of the local factors that may affect your rate decisions.

Our experience of using Instant Book is that once practices have used it, they return to it as their favoured booking method, further cementing its value to them. It is a win-win tool – locums have more control over their work and pay, whilst the practice saves significant resources in finding and directly booking locums.

Tips to finding jobs as a GP locum on LocumDeck

• Adding a photo of yourself helps practices recognise and book you for locum sessions.
• Help the practice manager by adding documentation and info about yourself in your Credentials area.
• You can upload your patient and colleague feedback surveys to increase your chance of getting booked.
• Highlight your GP locum experience or any special skills you have in the freetext Professional profile area.

Salaried GP

This will be stated in the written contract. The private fee can either be entirely subsumed within the normal, regular work of the salaried GP, or there could be a provision for private work to be undertaken over and above the their usual work, stating how much of the fee they receive (bearing in mind the practice’s overheads.

Locum GPs

For locum GPs, there is no issue as to whether or not a freelance GP can perform private work in a GP practice.

The practice and locum will need to agree beforehand whether their normal clinical caseload will contain private as well as NHS patients, with adequate time given for the private work in line with what other GPs in the practice would expect.

The practice and locum will also need to agree between them whether private work is charged at the same rate as NHS work.

In our experience, if private patients are seen within the usual agreed hours then the locum would not expect to be paid any extra. But if seen outside the usual agreed hours, the locum would expect to be paid the full private fee, with any practice overheads being offset by the additional service being offered by the locum. It makes the paperwork easier too.

If you are a self employed locum you can not claim Statutory Maternity pay but, if you’re eligible, you can claim standard-rate Maternity Allowance. You can claim as soon as you’ve been pregnant for 26 weeks, and payments can start 11 weeks before your baby is due.

Fill out the simple application form on the gov.uk website.

See also

More on paternity and maternity

If you’re a GP locum, you are self-employed and therefore are responsible for covering your own holiday and sickness pay. And maternity/paternity pay, redundancy (there will be times when you’re unemployed), tax, national insurance, travel – pretty much everything.

But that’s the choice you make when you’re a GP locum. That’s why you have to make sure that the rates you charge – and the insurance policies you purchase – cover these circumstances. There is a common misunderstanding that GP partners get holiday pay – they don’t. They instead pay a practice manager to spread their ‘drawings’ over the year.

Of course, as a GP locum, you could get holiday/sickness pay if you negotiated it into your terms and conditions. For that matter, you could even demand a case of wine for every week you work, but no practice in their right mind would want to take you on.

But if you’re doing a long-term locum e.g. for maternity leave, then it would be entirely reasonable for you to try and negotiate paid leave into your Terms and Conditions (though beware that the ‘counter-bid’ from the practice would probably be a reduced daily/weekly rate – as the other party, it’s entirely up to you what you agree to).

It’s all down to what you can negotiate. No harm in trying.

Read our FAQ for more: Am I entitled to sick pay?

Complete NASGP’s locum rates calculator to help you work out your baseline hourly or sessional locum rate. Once you’ve done this, you can then tailor the rate according to your experience, skills and different practices you work in.

VIEW LOCUM RATES CALCULATOR

Two main factors influence the rates you should charge GP practices as a GP locum: what seems fair, given the costs you incur, and the market rate for someone with your experience, providing the service you offer. All these things affect how much you can earn as a GP locum.

Our locum rates calculator covers the first of these, taking into account all the expenses you have to pay – such as professional memberships, NHS appraisal, and accountancy and tax advice.

The second factor – market rate – is more difficult to define. The BMA used to publish suggested rates, but no longer does this due to legal concerns about anti-competitive behaviour (see below).

Other factors affect rates too. These could include skills and experience, how much notice the GP locum gets before the practice books them, and local supply and demand. You’ll probably need to weigh up many influences when deciding your rate.

Join NASGP’s free three-month trial for news and advice on GP locum work.

How our locum rate calculator works

Read our full article for advice on how to decide your rates.

If it seems too difficult to balance all these factors – and you can’t ask other GP locums, given the legal difficulties of discussing rates with colleagues – you could base your rates on what you’d expect to earn for the same workload in a fairly paid salaried post. Include an allowance for your professional and personal running costs, and for leave (annual, sick and study) and this should help you arrive at a ballpark sessional or hourly rate. This is basically how our locum rates calculator works.

Usually it is a matter of personal preference whether you charge per session or per hour.

As a guide, 80% of sessions on LocumDeck are defined as ‘sessions’ rather than by the hour.

There is one situation on LocumDeck where it is definitely preferable to use a sessional rate which is if you are setting an All day session type and you are structuring this with morning and afternoon clinics and a break in the middle. In this case it is best to think of your “All day” rate so you are not charging the practice for your middle of the day break.