GP contract to mandate same-day access for ‘clinically urgent’ patients
The next GP contract will be amended to ‘explicitly’ require practices to deal with ‘clinically urgent’ patients on the same day, a letter sent to practices has revealed.
NHS England told practices the contract will be updated to include an explicit requirement around same-day response for clinically urgent needs.
Currently the contractual requirement is that patients should ‘know on the day’ how their issue will be handled, regardless of when their request was sent to the practice within core hours.
But the next contract will introduce an explicit requirement that ‘requests identified as clinically urgent, as determined by the GP practice, must be dealt with on the same day’.
And for patients whose needs are assessed as ‘non urgent’, practices will be required to provide an appropriate response ‘by the end of the next core hours period’, rather than within the same core hours period as currently required, the letter said.
The letter, see by Pulse and signed by NHS England primary care director Dr Amanda Doyle, said: ‘We will introduce a new requirement that patients identified as clinically urgent will be dealt with on the same day. It is for the GP practice to determine which patients are clinically urgent.
‘For patients whose needs are assessed as non urgent, practices will be required to provide an appropriate response by the end of the next core hours period.
‘For non-urgent cases, this does not necessarily mean an appointment, but it does mean patients will know how their presenting issue will be managed and what the next steps are.’
NHS England also said that the contract will be updated to ‘specifically’ set out the requirement that practices ‘must not ask patients to call back, or make contact, on another day’, but the amendment to the existing ‘appropriate response’ requirement will provide ‘greater flexibility’ for non-clinical urgent contacts.
The letter added: ‘Practices will still need to provide patients with a timely appropriate response confirming next steps, but this will be required by the end of the next working day (rather than within the same core hours period).
‘This does not mean the patient’s non-clinically urgent request must be fully dealt with by then; rather the patient should understand how and when their issue will be managed.’
Contract changes on access also include explicitly requiring that online consultation systems ‘must not cap the number of requests that can be submitted’ during core hours.
‘This will ensure that patients are able to contact their practice through core hours via all routes of access, and that online consultations operate with the same parity as telephone and walk-in access,’ the letter added.
The Government has released details of the 2026/27 GP contract in England, promising a £485m uplift and a new scheme providing practices with funds to hire new GPs and increase sessions of their current doctors.
And almost £300m will be made available to GP practices to recruit new GPs or increase GP sessions.
Read all of our coverage of the 2026/27 contract here.
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READERS' COMMENTS [14]
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Let see the details. What does ” must be dealt with on the same day’ means? Does it mean -pts request seen & pts signposted to go to W.I.C./A&E if there is no appts available with the GP surgery ? .If it requires patient to be seen within the practice its not going to be possible. Hope BMA takes strong stand. If we are forced to see urgent patients on the same day our routine chronic disease patients care will be impossible to deliver.
looks like this government is hellbent of finishing traditional General Practice in this country. Time for BMA to take strong stance and come up with PLAN B to go dentist way
Finite capacity v infinite demand with a 1.4% funding increase whilst minimum wage is increasing 4.1% from April. Solution that every other NHS service is using and gaming – waiting lists
Well this feels safe! We are being inundated with forms. I like the triage as I think it gives us the capacity to try to deflect some but should really be turned off at 3 at the latest to give us time to catch up and do any late visits/ late F2F for the inevitable children that need assessing after being at school or nursery all day. By 6.30 I am done in and I question the safety if all of this . We have already had to take a person off seeing F2F on a Monday to help with the forms, thereby losing 13 appointments.
If we then have to see everyone who has been at work all day but then decides their cough needs to be seen at 5 pm, then I think it will push a lot of us who are on the wrong side of 55 in to early retirement!
I can see a few more going to Oz/NZ
Do we have to see them or just triage them? Because unless I lock the doors and block the car park I’m not sure how to persuade the staff to stay for hours past closing time until everyone who contacts us is seen that day. Given we don’t live in a communist dictatorship a simple fiat declaration that we ‘must’ increase tractor production won’t work.
Patients have cottoned on very quickly that if you contact in the afternoon after triage closes, particularly if it’s a child under 5. The practice is obliged to do something which currently may be simple advice and add to next day’s clinical assessment list-The concern is the demand will just continue to increase without any particular checks and balances, other than some form of triage while trying to keep things running with very little real terms increase in funding.
BBC website has it as will need to see same day appointments – that’s how it’s being sold to the public
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm28vp0pkzro
Wait until the fun starts when the patient or their relative insists it is urgent and the GP says it is not. This will simply push those GPs that can leave the NHS into leaving sooner.
There will be a pot of money to spend but nobody left to employ. NHSE really are clueless about how General Practice works in the day to day world and not wishful thinking in some Whitehall offices
It’s increasingly clear that this Govt knows nothing about how general practice works, Or its aim is to destroy public sector traditional GP. This is a good way to do it. What’s the BMA’s next move – apart from eyes down scrutinising this “dead cat” “in good faith”? Wes is keen to nail this down before he gets chucked out of his job in May.
Is this part of the Streeting leadership plan?
Provided WE determine what is urgent, not the patient, this isn’t the disaster it seems.
There is a narrow window between “go to A&E” and something that can wait a day or 2. We already see the few people in this window on the same day..
this is being set up for AI triage which will make the decision and take us out of the loop. The tipping point is when we feel able to not be involved in the triage despite the clinical risk that this involves
Fairly simple to tell an urgent case that gp surgery capacity is already reached – your problem is urgent off to the walk-in centre or a&e.
Easy peasy and much better than rolling on to another day.
Its time to quit before its too late .