BMA set to lose exclusive GP contract negotiating role in England
Exclusive The Government is overhauling the way it decides the terms of the GP contract in England starting with next year’s contract – significantly diluting the BMA’s role.
The decision will instead see a group of stakeholders consulted on changes – effectively ending the BMA’s role as sole negotiator of contract terms held since the inception of the NHS.
Alongside the BMA GP Committee England, NHS England will also consult with the RCGP, the National Association of Primary Care (NAPC), Healthwatch England, National Voices and the NHS Confederation.
Pulse understands the reason for the change was to make the process more constructive and in order to hear more voices, including from patients.
The decision comes as the Government had cancelled all meetings with the BMA’s GP Committee while reviewing the relationship in recent weeks, amid a row over whether 1 October contract changes mandating core hours online access was agreed with the BMA or whether it was imposed.
In an exclusive op-ed published in Pulse today, NHS England’s primary care director Dr Amanda Doyle revealed that the consultation on next year’s contract will begin shortly.
She said: ‘I am determined to keep listening to your concerns and to work to address them as consultation for the 2026/27 GMS contract begins in the coming weeks.
‘We will consult with GPCE as we usually do but also talk to a range of other groups so that we hear from a wider group of primary care stakeholders, including patients.’
Pulse understands that the Department of Health and Social Care has a statutory duty to consult the BMA on the Statement of Financial Entitlement (SFE) but that this has to be only one session.
Pulse also understands that the BMA has been told that each stakeholder will be given one session to discuss the next contract.
However, a DHSC spokesperson said: ‘We will consult with the BMA GPCE as we usually do. The only change is that we will engage with wider primary care stakeholders, including patients.
‘We continue to value and consider GPCE’s input in this process but firmly believe that listening to input from a wider range of stakeholders will only help to strengthen policy making, ensuring that general practice works for staff and patients.’
A spokesperson for the NAPC said: ‘NAPC has been approached – as a membership organisation we are well placed and happy to share the views of our members with the DHSC.’
Healthwatch England head of policy and research William Pett said: ‘Access to GP services remains the most common concern we hear about. This affects communities across the country, but the greatest impact is felt by disadvantaged groups such as disabled people and those on lower incomes.
‘We therefore welcome the opportunity to bring the experiences and concerns of patients into GP contract negotiations. By ensuring the patient voice is heard, the NHS can make services more patient‑centred and responsive to real needs.’
Ruth Rankine, primary care director at the NHS Confederation, said: ‘We look forward to working with the Government and other partners to inform the future contract as part of this consultation process.
‘Primary care is made up of multidisciplinary teams that work together to deliver care for patients. With the focus on delivering the Government’s ambition of moving care closer to home through a neighbourhood health service we need to ensure that the future GP contract reflects the valuable role general practice has to play and support the collaboration that is needed across primary care as well as with the rest of the system in order to succeed.’
Jacob Lant, chief executive at National Voice, said: ‘It is long overdue for a wider range of stakeholders to be involved in discussions about the future of the GP contract. Decisions of this scale must be shaped not only by professional bodies but by the people who use services every day.
‘National Voices is glad to bring the experiences and priorities of our members and the patients they represent into this process. We look forward to working collaboratively to ensure the contract supports accessible, person-centred primary care for everyone.’
Primary care minister Stephen Kinnock last week said talks could not go ahead whilst the BMA was threatening to take collective or industrial action over a contract GPC England agreed in full.
The England LMC Conference earlier this month backed a number of motions to escalate the dispute, including potential full-day walkouts, undated resignations and refusing online access compliance.
However, GPCE chair Dr Katie Bramall said last week there were ‘no current plans’ for a ballot and no such motions were on the agenda for this week’s GPCE meeting when it was circulated to members last Thursday.
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Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles
So my contract will be decided by the utterly useless , naval gazing and professionally harmful body that is the RCGP?
Along with patient representatives….?
DATED resignation letters. Now.
What the actual fuck?!
time to just strike I think
the patient group doesn’t decide contract terms; that’s like saying rail passengers decide on train workers contractual negotiations, Christ this government is so shite
Also my understanding of contract law is you have to have the parties to the contract agree the contract. Patient groups, rcgp and health watch are not parties to the contract. The contract is between government who is employing our service and the service providers-ie GP surgeries. Represented by their union.
Looks like bully boy tactics to me. Wes has spat the dummy
I have to agree – we seem to sit back waiting for something to be sorted for us whilst everything we have worked for with our populations has been eroded frankly through recurrent lies from career politicians. When are we a GPs going to learn as a body that until we are united we are just a collection of fluff that can be wafted down the road until we just shrug and carry on carrying all the extra workload that has been unsafely dropped on us with shrinking resource
Lets see the BMA fight back and quosh this one. if ever there was a reason to have undated resignation letters, it is now
I agree with RCGP comment. Anything they touch often turns to faeces. Full of non working doctors with no idea about the on the ground reality of seeing patients. They don’t need or deserve a voice.
When are we going to learn that you cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth?
Dear patients – remember what happened to dentistry services going private because the government failed to listen to NHS dentists? Unless the government listen to GPs and deliver on previous promises I fear general practice will end up private as well. This will be a disaster.
that’s a big change!!!
Perhaps patients might actually tell them they want to see GP’s rather than non doctors and we might end some Gp unemployment?
That really is 2 fingers sent our way by the gvt.
They obviously want a fight, and sadly I think they will probably win whilst patients will lose.
Just go private and do a dentist en masse
The RCGP which i have paid into for decades, I also agree is a complete farce of an organisation. It does not represent us only representing itself as a detached organisation as has always been the case in my view and I strongly feel it should not be at the table as this completely hopeless self-serving group will do untold further damage to the profession in my opinion. It does nothing of value for its members but services the need for Royal accolades and tiles for its leaders and creates comfortable academic positions for those in the inner circle who soak up all our fees and overpriced other payments of various types. It is highly questionable as to why anyone would pay any fees to this hopeless group (although I do to keep track of how useless it actually is) unless you are one of these inner circle categories. I have decided at significant cost (and waste) to continue RCGP subscriptions, as this hopelessly unrepresentative organisation is the additional factor which explains why the worthy profession of General Practice is in a such a mess following its ongoing failures to represent those who pay the fees. One only has to look at the pointless , useless space wasting self congratulating emails we are sent by this waste of space organisation. How many more of these’ I met from XX from the government or X organisation’ telling us the trips the RCGP hierarchy manage to take with no actual discernible outcome or progress other than the subsequent intangible waffle do we have to continue to endure? It is time to consider strike in the same way as the junior doctors but this will require some work from the BMA.
Hope they invite all relevant consumer focused agencies to future negotiations with all the Labour supporting unions
Great analogy
Feckin’ madness.
There’s a reason lawyers/ accountants/ skilled tradespeople don’t allow their customers to unilaterally decide their terms and conditions of contract.
Those comparing GP work with dentistry should remember: a dental nurse cannot perform treatments like RCTs, whereas a practice nurse can carry out most tasks a GP does — and anything beyond their scope can be referred to A&E. A dental nurse cannot refer to A&E without a dentist
How ever did the BMA not see this coming? How did our trade union allow itself to be boxed into this situation?
F O, take note! there’s no need for unprofessional, gutter language and causing religious offence.
I agree with all the what the actual fuck comments, obviously apart from J S comparing a Practice Nurse’s skills and experience to that of a qualified doctor with seven years’ experience, and the tortuous analogy suggesting GPs are redundant/dispensable. Is J S actually James Bethell or Alan Milburn?
I’m catholic; we say christ for emphasis, when we are really exclaiming we say jesus christ
If those bodies have any sense they would refuse to be used in this manner
Nick- if GP skills are genuinely as rare and valued as suggested, it’s hard to reconcile that with thousands of GPs being unemployed or under-employed and GP pay remaining stagnant since before Covid. If the market truly reflected the value of our skills, partnerships wouldn’t need to cling to us, we could resign tomorrow and comfortably find work. The reality on the ground tells a very different story.
if partnerships hadn’t spent years hiring and training PAs, ANPs and others to replace core GP functions, boosting partners profits to >£300k, while driving down the value of salaried and locum roles — there wouldn’t now be this sudden need to shout about ‘7–10 years of training’ to justify relevance. The wheel is only turning because the model that created £300k partnerships while thousands of colleagues are unemployed is not sustainable. Work hard for your pennies (lot of them) now
I have a wierd feeling that this move will not be popular, and will not help this government’s popularity at all.
I wonder why? (No, not really)
Go look in the BMJ 15 March 1958! GMSC has the negotiating rights period
K84019
So contract imposition which is pretty much what has been happening anyway ….
Time to privatise and charge our worth
Not unsurprising – the BMA need to represent their members interests, practice contracts are increasingly a much broader issue affecting many staff groups, reception nurses managers without even touching on the ARRS issue. Hospital contracts are not negotiated by the BMA but Consultants T & C are which is where I suspect the parallels will move over time.
J S – Multiple false premises. If you are a GP – which I doubt – then you have a peculiar and poor understanding of how GP is funded and why PAs/ARRS roles have replaced GPs.
£300k?? Do break that down for us. Average Partner earnings £110-140k before tax and on-costs.
This is irresponsible posturung by the g9vernment who seem hell bent on playing russian roullette with the health of the nation. The proffession may well be minded to ask them to find an alternative provider of the 1.5 million consultations each day.
It’s impossible to work with this government in good faith!
It’s impossible to work with this government in good faith. So don’t.