England GPs to receive 4% pay uplift backdated to April

GPs in England will receive a 4% pay rise for 2025/26 backdated to April, the Government has announced.

The Government committed to ‘uplifting the pay element of the GP contract’ by 4%, uplifting the minimum and maximum of the pay range for salaried GPs by 4% and uplifting the GP educators pay scale by 4% ‘all on a consolidated basis’.

Health secretary Wes Streeting said in a statement that the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) recommended a headline 4% increase to salary scales, pay ranges and the pay elements of contracts from 1 April.

GP partners are included in the DDRB remit so the recommendation is that their pay goes up by 4%.

The DDRB also recommended that an extra £750 be added to the pay points for doctors and dentists in training.

In accepting these recommendations, the Government said it has committed to:

• uplifting the pay range for salaried GPs by 4%, uplifting the pay element of the GP contract by 4%, uplifting the minimum and maximum of the pay range for salaried GPs by 4%, and uplifting the GP educators pay scale by 4% all on a consolidated basis;
• uplifting pay points for doctors and dentists in training (c.77,000 doctors) by 4% plus £750 on a consolidated basis;
• uplifting the salaries of consultants (c.63,000 doctors) by 4% on a consolidated basis;
• uplifting the pay element of the General Dental Practitioners contract (c.24,000 dentists) and the pay scale for salaried dentists by 4% on a consolidated basis;
• uplifting the pay scales of specialist and associate specialist (SAS) doctors on all contracts by 4% on a consolidated basis.
• uplifting flexible pay premia by 4% on a consolidated basis.

The Government had previously said in its submission to the DDRB that it had set aside funding to offer GPs a maximum 2.8% pay rise for 2025/26.

Today the Department of Health and Social Care said that it can award ‘across-the-board pay rises’ above 2.8% because of cuts made across ICBs, and ‘reforms already being made to cut waste and unnecessary bureaucracy across the health service’. 

It added: ‘Over the past few months, we have identified how extra funds will be freed up by cutting duplication between the department and NHSE, cutting NHSE headcount, slashing budgets for corporate services like NHS communications teams, and bringing down ICB costs by 50%. As a result of the savings found, none of the pay increases will be paid for by cutting frontline services.’

The BMA said that it believes that the uplift has ‘failed to redress historic losses of pay’ and that the DDRB has ‘failed doctors’.

The union’s GP committee chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer said: ‘This is not going to be enough to realise the Government’s ambitions to “fix the front door” of the NHS or expand GP teams and “bring back the family doctor”.  

‘In fact, things have deteriorated to such an extent, we are now seeing GP unemployment at the same time patients are clamouring for more GP appointments, because most practices simply do not have the financial headspace to be able to expand their teams.

‘This continued failure to fund general practice fairly, is not only central to why the NHS remains in such a mess – but any meaningful recovery simply will not happen until we do.’

The chair of the BMA council, Professor Philip Banfield, said that GP practices are facing ‘an absurd situation’ where a significant portion of new funding from the Government, ‘at least £187m’, will be spent on increased National Insurance tax and National and Minimum living wages.

He said: ‘This means a large amount of new funding is going straight back to the Treasury, not leaving enough to uplift practice staff salaries, let alone recruit more GPs. We are seeing GPs unable to get a job as patients are desperate to see a family doctor.  

‘Salaried GPs, who make up more than half of the family doctors working in practices in England, have experienced similar pay erosion to hospital doctors and today’s announcement does nothing to address their pay issues.

‘This continued failure to adequately fund general practice is not only central to why the NHS remains in such a mess, but any meaningful recovery simply won’t happen until we do.’

Last year, the DDRB recommended a 6% pay rise for all UK GPs, which included partners for the first time in five years, and the Government accepted this recommendation in full.