GP trainees need to look beyond the clinical aspects of the role to decide what kind of career they want to pursue.
Alongside the interim report on the partnership review, Dr Nigel Watson and colleagues have released this ‘mythbuster’ designed to help trainees and newly qualified GPs better understand the options available.
The guidance covers the following key areas, based on questions posed by trainees and answered by experienced GPs, with specialist advice from medical accountants, surveyors and lawyers:
- The potential benefits of being a partner
- Personal risks if the practice doesn’t do well financially
- The meaning of drawings and ‘parity’
- Earnings compared with being a salaried GP?
- Meaning of the term ‘goodwill’
- Premises – what the options are: ‘buying in’ and the alternatives
- The tax implications of being a partner
- Understanding ‘working capital’
- Legal and financial responsibilities for staff
- Pension contributions
- The differences between GMS, PMS and APMS contracts
- What is MPIG?
- Employment rights as a partner
- Issues and risks around ‘last person standing’
- Is it true that joining a partnership is like a marriage?
- The future of the partnership model
