GPs to be balloted on ‘plan B’ including providing private services, BMA confirms
The BMA’s GP committee will ballot GPs in England on a ‘plan B’, or an ‘alternative strategy’ for general practice that would allow GPs ‘greater freedom to provide private services to their patients’, the union has confirmed.
It comes after GP leaders from around the UK voted in favour of drawing up a strategy for ‘exiting GMS contracts’ and ‘future working outside the NHS’, at UK LMC conference earlier this month.
Following the vote, the union’s GP committee has now confirmed it supports balloting the profession on ‘a plan B option for general practice provision’ that includes consideration of a ‘means-tested, subscription-based service’, such as those being offered currently by NHS dentists. This will be the first time the union is balloting GPs on an alternative model.
GP leaders at the LMC conference suggested that leaving the NHS could be used as ‘leverage’ by GPs during the ongoing collective action organised by the BMA.
BMA GPC chair Dr Katie Bramall said that the exploration of an alternative model is a consequence of ‘long-term political and systemic failure’ to protect NHS general practice, which has left the profession ‘deeply frustrated, with no other choice but to explore alternatives’.
She said: ‘The committee’s confidence in the future viability of their livelihoods, and of the profession itself within the NHS, is at an all-time low.
‘Warnings have been repeatedly ignored by politicians that long-term under-investment in general practice, coupled with rising workloads, increasingly complex patient need, workforce attrition and contractual arrangements that leave practices vulnerable, will lead to GPs and practices being unable to deliver safe and sustainable care to their NHS patients.
‘Under current contractual arrangements, GPs are prevented from meeting patient demand for some services. These obstacles limit our ability to deliver the care patients ask for or deserve, restricting clinical flexibility.
‘This didn’t happen overnight; it has been a slow and gradual deterioration of morale within the profession.
‘The need for this ballot can be prevented, but the Government must urgently engage with the very real concerns GPs have around their core contract, as well as their wellbeing and livelihoods, or we risk losing NHS general practice entirely. The latest contract imposition and the Government’s demand for GPs to provide unlimited access is the final straw for many.’
Pulse has contacted the Department of Health and Social Care for comment.
In 2024, UK LMCs had already authorised the BMA’s GP committees ‘to use the threat of mass resignation to improve the NHS offer to practices’, adding that GPs ‘walking away’ from the NHS will be more powerful than collective action.
And last year the BMA’s Northern Ireland GP committee was instructed by LMCs to set up a working group to ‘develop a plan B for general practice’, and to ‘immediately’ begin development of a strategy for exiting the 2004 GMS contract and ‘future working outside of the NHS’.
Related Articles
Oviva’s fully remote Tier 3 Weight Management programmeREADERS' COMMENTS [9]
Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles
Oh yes ?
And who do the Patients’ Records belong to?
And will private GPs be allowed to access them?
Ape together strong
Are the BMA ok? Strikes when getting a 33% pay rise and now GPs destroying the NHS will be the headlines of summer. Trust in dentists is zero after they have opted out of public dental health to fleece the middle class but GPs are still respected because they serve all equally. Those health professionals who want to be private must be trained,housed and insured privately. Training alone costs 100,000’s and the NHS should now charge dentists and private GPs every penny of that ahead. Please talk to Mr Farage for any spare crypto to fund it.
“GPs destroying the NHS will be the headlines of summer.”
GPs have had bad press since the start of my career. It hasn’t stopped patients from coming (like most surgeries we run at >100% every day) and it hasn’t stopped out terms and income from being eroded. For what it’s worth it hasn’t even stopped us from continuing to be generally liked by the patients that we look after.
It’s time to explore something different.
Plan A is failing and unsustainable
Plan B is an option
For those who don’t like plan. B what a is your plan C alternative..?
Really… our NHS has ‘failed’ so we need to move to a USA/ Australia/ Europe system instead? I have had personal experiences of overseas healthcare for my family and it cost a fortune ( even with insurance!), was entirely centred on maximising profit and cemented my opinion that the NHS is the greatest public service in the world. It’s easy to be negative if you haven’t had a cancer diagnosis, stroke, heart attack or sepsis that our amazing NHS treats every hour for free. Yes it could be better but please use evidence rather than propaganda from those who have vested interests in its failure.
Dentist may have zero trust by public but they DO NOT have endless demands for appointments. NHS probably was the greatest healthcare system in the world but its failing everyone including GP. Other healthcare system may be expensive to run but its governments problem not OURS. GP would have carried on for many more years if this unlimited online access was not enforced on us without any real solution.
No solution will be perfect .Going dentist way will have its problem too but at least we will have some control.
I would like to see real practical alternative from colleagues who are sceptical about Plan B of GP going dentist way which will alleviate problem GP are facing. If you have real great solution please put it forward , don’t just harp on greatness of free NHS
‘Training costs £100,000’
Allegedly, if you enclude the subsidies to hospitals and other academic ivory tower nonsense. Training does cost the doctor £100,000 though in loans and exam fees, and more in lost earnings due to longer degree courses.
The vast majority of GPs have long since paid back any hypothetical ‘debt’ in the 2 hours per day of unpaid overtime they’ve done for years.
Also, does ‘losing the public trust’ keep any dentists awake at night?
Perhaps the demonstrably more successful hydrib models used in Ireland* and large parts of the EU/Aus/NZ might actually be better and worth looking at? Perhaps making the costs of private General Practice artificially high does no one a service, reduce the amount of overall funding available to develop capacity and introduce more efficent diagnostics and ways of working (which would benefit all.
*In Ireland they have a ‘reverse inequality’ where diabetics earning over €92,000 pa will recieve notably worse care unless they spend a LOT of money.
The key thing here is that for there to be a vote on Plan B there must BE a Plan B. Before the vote.
Don’t let it be like Brexit where people voted for “not Plan A” and then Plan B had to be worked out month by agonising month after the vote had already happened.