Exclusive NHS England is planning to go ahead with asking the highest-earning GPs to declare their income next year, Pulse has learned, including partners, salaried and locum GPs.
NHS England has shared draft guidance on the pay transparency requirement with the BMA’s GP Committee and the Association of Independent Specialist Medical Accountants (AISMA), Pulse understands.
The draft guidance sets the threshold for earnings at which GPs have to declare at £156,000 for 2021/22; £159,000 for 2022/23; and £163,000 for 2023/24.
The pay transparency requirement was originally delayed due to the pandemic and then again in November and April this year, when GPs faced the first and second deadlines to submit declarations.
The BMA most recently said it was pushing for a further delay, so as to not trigger the requirement from April next year.
However now the BMA’s GP Committee has been told: ‘NHSE plan to publish the guidance at the end of January/start of February 2023 to allow around 3 months for individuals to complete the self-declaration.’
This timeline would mean GPs covered by the requirement would need to make their first declaration by the end of April or early May.
According to the 2020/21 GP contract, partners, salaried GPs and locums who earned more than £150,000 per year in pensionable income would be ‘listed by name and earnings bands’ publicly, although later BMA guidance had stated that only GP partners would be covered to begin with.
But the new draft guidance from NHS England lists those who will be covered by the mandate as:
- GP contract partners and contractors who are individual medical practitioners
- Partners of clinical sub-contractors and sub-contractors who are an individual (including: partners of any onward clinical sub-contractors, and any onward clinical sub-contractor who is an individual)
- Individuals who work for (are engaged by) either a contractor or clinical sub-contractor (including any onward clinical sub-contractors) under either a contract of employment; a contract for services; or or as a company officer (directors and any company secretary).
- Individuals engaged by a third party to provide clinical services (e.g. a locum engaged via an employment agency)
GP practices will need to include the requirement in new employee and sub-contractor contracts, and take reasonable steps to update existing ones, the guidance said, although they will not be responsible for ensuring it is adhered to.
GP contractors are ‘required to pass on (or in some circumstances to use reasonable endeavours to pass on) the pay transparency obligation to the individuals’, the draft guidance states.
Upon announcing the pay transparency contractual change when it was first agreed with the BMA’s GP Committee, NHS England had said it came as part of a drive to ‘increase transparency on NHS earnings’.
GPs have been required to publish average individual net earnings on their practice website since 2016/17, following a previous move to increase transparency on earnings.
In response to Pulse’s article, the BMA said NHS England’s plans ‘must be scrapped’ as they risk driving GPs out of the profession.
Dicks
WE ARE SAVED!!!
NHSE thank you so much! This single Intervention alone will solve all of our workforce problems!
Pop home early for Xmas why don’t you!? ….oh wait. Already have.
Yep that’s really going to sort the F2F issue
4 sessions and then it’s “Harvey Smith”
Total bunch of “cluster fucks” the saddest part is if I get poorly they will be looking after me
Fits with the current rhetoric that public servants should be grateful for their employment and indeed should be redoubling their efforts free gratis!
This country has lost it, talk about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing!
Agree the sad part is we are all patients and we will be paying handsomely in the future for our care, mind you hopefully we will get some kind of discount for services rendered!!
One thing is certain all the punters who will be writing in complaining that we are overpaid, lazy and hiding from consultations etc etc won’t be getting any discount and won’t know what has hit them!That’s if they can get anyone to treat them!!
£150K per annum will be what the public will see and it will be seen as a large figure. 20.6% is the employers contribution which is (I assume) included in the amount. So in effect we have to declare at a salary of £119k. Further nail in the retention of GPs coffin.
BMA have been complete fuckwits in contractural dealings with the tory administration and should have called this for what it is “smoke and mirrors” as the hard right of the party fights to regain control from the dwindling numbers of left leaning moderates.
Prime minister’s salary ignores the massive allowances Generous pension arrangements etc
Just say no collectively
Will there be any penalty if you over declare? One way of trying to attract partners. 1.5 million should do it ? 🫢
How about No?
In other news, your nurses and ambulances are tanking. Global shambles. And soon your junior doctors. There’s a chronic migraine for you. And this is what thumb twiddling you’re doing. Get a life and proper job. GPs can give you a cluster headache if you want one, it’s pretty easy at this rate.
Just say No.A word that should have been used by the BMA an awful lot more over the last decade.BMA you need to learn from other unions.Their is a post brexit fight for the maintain eye of the rights of working people.Are you going to stand by or join the fight.After your record over the past decade still glad I don’t contribute to your gravy train.Out in 12 months.
Cancelling BMA direct debit.
I’m not at risk of this at the minute personally -but ….
– Why would the BMA agree to this?
– Why GPs not consultants /hospital staff/ chief execs/ ICB bosses?
– Why not all public servants, MPs, Teachers, Quango bosses, Capita staff
Just another form of intimidation aimed at General Practice which won’t help with retention or recruitment.
We run businesses, what we ‘earn’ on paper bears no resemblance to what we take home as lots of income has to remain in the business to keep it running.
Of course it will not be reported this way by the Daily Fail and co, we will be made out to be greedy, lazy, six figure earning layabouts.
Well done NHSE you should be especially proud of yourselves for this one
Will you also be listing the salaries of top earners in NHSE?
I agree we must just say NO!
An excellent way to deal with the oversupply of GPs. It will definitely cause some to leave either the country or profession and others to cut sessions. A true triumph from the masterminds at NHSE again.
On a more serious note, I fail to see any good justification or benefit to this and of course we should all refuse to declare – what are they going to do to force/police this? Close us all down?
MY earnings are my business and no one else’s. Therefore they can do one and mount a legal challenge against me if they really care that much. I work 9-10 sessions per week, so deserve every penny and more.
My most recent comment has been taken down.
I would like to apologise
I in no way meant to harm the reputations of the noble callings of sex workers, money traffickers, drug dealers, organised criminals and the current occupants of the London Zoo Reptile house by perhaps drawing a too close comparison to Conservative Party MPs.
date: january 2023
dear practice managers
thankyou so much for all the work you have given me over the past few years. as a locum i have enjoyed all your company and i am glad to have been of help over the years.
as you know, i am 72 years old, and now mortgage and debt free.
unfortunately, the government has decided to have another go at “gp bashing”, and decided that all gp’s earning over a certain amount will have to publish their earnings. this does not apply to consultants, pr consultants, hospital managers, politicians etc etc – just gp’s.
for this reason i have now got to re-assess what i earn, to avoid the politicians, press, joe public and everyone else banging on my door saying i am a “fat cat/milking the nhs/overpaid, underworked, lazy gp etc etc etc”
this unfortunately means that i cannot commit to working my regular slot for your practice until i know where i am earnings-wise.
i know this will be a disappointment to you and all the patients, but i’m sure you will understand this is completely outside the control of myself, and all the other locums and salaried gp’s. obviously, the supply of suitably qualified doctors will drop, and presumably the wait to see a gp will get longer, but there is nothing we can do about that – could you please explain that to the patients when they start complaining.
i am still around, with an unrestricted license to practice, and as soon as the situation changes we can all get back to work, and the nhs can start playing “catch up” – yet again.
in the meantime i shall be in my car workshop, fixing my classic car collection – so if any of you need any spraying or welding done, please call down. i shall be able to help with this, because anything i earn from this does not count as “medical income”, and i don’t have to tell the nosey parker brigade how much i earn from other sources.
thankyou again
dr d jenkins, gmc# 2317878
TORY SCUM
If you support the NHS then by definition you want the government to be your customer, and this is what the customer desires.
In an alternative system not crowded out by the NHS ordinary people would contribute towards the cost of care. Knowing your income would be low on their list of what they are paying for.
Afraid not
Dear locum doctors,
Yes, you. The people who we don’t employ in any way, shape, or form, and over whose earnings and working patterns we have absolutely no visibility.
We’d be terribly obliged if you could tell us if you earn lots of money so we can talk to our friends at the Daily Mail about how awful and greedy you are.
if you don’t, then we’ll…well…nothing. Because there’s nothing we possibly can do. But we’ll include you in the blurb because the government, who tell us what to do, want to be able to play at being Rambo on public sector pay to the dwindling number of gammons and psychopaths who make up their political base.
So be careful, or we may impotently ask you to self-report again next year.
Thanks,
NHS England
Notwithstanding my comment above which I stand by, how exactly is NHSE going to know if I am fibbing? Surely my income is by default, a confidential matter. From which organisation/entity can they seek this information without my consent? Surely there are actually some legal issues here which stand above whatever bollocks the contract states? This requirement is vindictive. Be certain that the daily mail will have an online tool the same day it’s published, to look up your local GP. One glance at their readership BTL commentary on GO matters exposes a fearsome level of ignorance and hate. I say now, I will hold NHSE legally responsible for any harm that comes to person or property from this venal plan.
Here we go again ..
No wonder doctors are fed up.
BMA needs to put up a legal challenge based on right to privacy. If need be efer to European Court on Human Rights..
Even GPs like myself not effected by this fresh Hell are outraged.
Most doctors earning this amount, many already working full-time, are giving up their evenings and weekends (something I’m now relieved I refuse to do) to prop up a crumbling service, and are now rewarded by being singled out for public humiliation.
The BMA must encourage mass refusal whilst fighting it through the courts on the grounds of discrimination.
10 years of labour, 10years of Tory. The country is in a mess. The Reform party looks like a fresh choice actually making work pay.
As far as I can see, there isn’t any way to enforce this as far, even if it is a contractual requirement.
Only GPs earning over £156k need declare. But surely only the GPs, their accountants and HMRC will know which GPs these are? And if the GPs don’t choose to step forward, the accountants and HMRC aren’t going to.
So there’s no way anyone could prove that any given GP failed to declare earnings over £156k.