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‘Average GP earnings’ at prominent GP’s practice is £23k per year

The practice of Family Doctor Association chairman Dr Peter Swinyard has revealed that their mean GP earnings are only £22,884 per annum, according to the calculations set out by NHS England.

The website of the Phoenix surgery in Swindon adds this this is much less than a train driver, who ‘according to a Government website… would earn from £35,000-£60,000 per year.’

Dr Swinyard told Pulse that this number reflects the fact that ‘the amount of money coming into the practice is not enough to sustain the service we’re providing.’

GPs have had to publish their earnings since the end of March as a requirement of the 2015/16 contract.

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Earnings are calculated based on contractual income from NHS England, CCGs and local authorities divided by the number of GPs working full- or part-time in the practice. 

Dr Swinyard suspects that many other practices will have found similarly low mean GP earnings, ‘if their accountants work them out for them in the correct way’.

‘If I hadn’t cashed in my NHS pension, I wouldn’t be able to survive on what the practice is making just now… And I haven’t actually been paid this year at all, there is no money, I have been living on my pension and my savings,’ Dr Swinyard added.

The Phoenix surgery website notes that ‘the prescribed method for calculating earnings is potentially misleading because it takes no account of how much time doctors spend working in the practice, and should not be used to form any judgement about GP earnings, nor to make any comparison with any other practice.’