No GP practices affected by reimbursement scheme rate error, says DHSC

The Government has corrected an error in the amount that GPs can claim under the practice-level reimbursement scheme, saying no practices were affected.

An amendment to the GMS Statement of Financial Entitlements (SFE), published yesterday, corrected the hourly reimbursement rate for the ‘increased participation’ of an existing salaried GP from £90.61 to £78.41.

The Department of Health and Social Care told Pulse that the corrected hourly rate for additional sessions worked by existing salaried GPs was calculated to match the annual reimbursement available for newly-employed salaried GPs (see box below).

It added that no practices that had already applied to access the funding would have been affected because the system via which practices claim reimbursement did not contain the incorrect amount.

The reimbursement scheme was introduced for the 2026/27 GP contract to ‘enable practices to recruit new GPs’ or ‘increase the number of sessions from GPs already working in the practice’.

Under the scheme, practices can make a claim for:

The employment of ‘a new salaried GP’;
The ‘increased participation’ of an existing salaried GP;
Where the contractor is a core network member of a PCN ‘to enable the continuation of employment or engagement of a salaried GP’ previously funded through Capacity and Access Payments.

The amendment, which came into force today (25 June), only applies to claims made for the increased participation of an existing salaried GP.

Meanwhile, the amount practices can claim for a new salaried GP remains at £152,900 a year (or £155,698 for London weighting).

GP reimbursement scheme payments

For the employment of ‘a new salaried GP’

The lower of-

(i) the actual cost incurred by the contractor; and
(ii) the maximum sum of £152,900 and (or £155,698 where London weighting applies)

For the ‘increased participation’ of an existing salaried GP

The lower of-

(i) the actual cost per hour incurred by the contractor; and
(ii) the maximum hourly rate of £78.41 (£79.84 where London weighting applies).

Source: GMS SFE (Amendment) (No. 2) Directions 2026

The reimbursement scheme has been funded with £292m ‘repurposed’ directly from PCN Capacity and Access Payments.

GP leaders have previously warned that the scheme could be ‘prohibitively narrow in scope’, as exclusively revealed by Pulse.

Other conditions for the scheme include a financial entitlement cap of £4.57, multiplied by the practice adjusted population per practice during the financial year, while GP practices with more than 3,500 patients per GP must also get ICB approval to participate in the scheme.

NHS England clarified in May that locum GPs could be eligible for the scheme, but only if they held an employment contract for additional sessions.

Pulse has contacted the BMA for comment.