The BMA’s GP Committee will meet with the profession to seek views on a general practice model that is ‘fit for the future’, it has said.
It comes amid ongoing negotiations with NHS England for this year’s update to the GP contract, which the BMA said it hopes will reflect ‘current’ GP pressures.
Pulse revealed on Friday that the BMA and NHS England have not yet reached an agreement on the contract, with just five weeks to go until any 2022/23 variations to the five-year contract are implemented.
In a new GPC England bulletin, deputy chair Dr Kieran Sharrock said: ‘Given the time of year, many of you will be having questions about the 2022/23 contract.
‘Negotiations are ongoing and remain confidential until they have concluded.’
He added: ‘The GPC England executive team have been meeting with NHSE/I frequently since early January 2022 to negotiate changes to the contract that reflect the current day pressures.
‘It is our intention to meet with LMCs and GPs over the coming months to seek your views on a model of general practice which is fit for the future, that will enable us to care [for] our patients safely.’
Dr Sharrock reiterated that the GPC ‘will leave no stone unturned in trying to find an agreed way forward’.
Pulse has asked the BMA whether there are fears that a new contract could be imposed if no agreement is reached.
The bulletin also said that the GPC has ‘requested urgent communications to the public’ about infection prevention and control (IPC) expectations in healthcare settings, after NHS England confirmed last week that patients should continue to wear face masks in GP practices.
The five-year GP contract for England’s GPs was entered into in 2019/20, but the BMA’s GP Committee negotiates some variations to it annually.
The updated contract is due to come into force in April.
The BMA previously clarified that it is not seeking to renegotiate the current five-year GP contract, outside of the usual annual amendments, following a statement that suggested this might be the case.
GPC England chair Dr Farah Jameel had said that the committee’s ‘new leadership’ provided ‘an opportunity to renew, reset and renegotiate a contract that delivers for both the profession and patients’ and addresses GP workforce retention.
Meanwhile, work is underway to explore the creation of a new representative body for GPs, in the form of a ‘National Association of LMCs’, amid dissatisfaction with the BMA.
However, those behind it have said that they do not think the new association should take over contract negotiations from the GPC.
It comes as NHS England has also said that the Covid vaccine DES is expected to be extended until September, although must not impact on ‘core’ GP services.
READERS' COMMENTS [2]
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Bring the Tabasco, cold water and red voting cards. Not the candy floss and pillows.
The model is fine. There is no better model than partnership-based semi-autonomous small businesses embedded in the heart of their communities. The funding is the big problem (along with senior NHSE management culture and ignorance of what we do, and their expectation that we can take on infinite work within shrinking capacity). But sort the funding out, leave us alone and trust us to deliver, and everything will get better very quickly.