Over 60% of GPs ‘unsatisfied’ with Government’s handling of general practice

Exclusive Over 60% of GPs are ‘unsatisfied’ with the Government’s handing of general practice, a new Pulse survey has found.

The poll of 667 GPs found that 30.58% are ‘quite unsatisfied’ and 32.83% are ‘very unsatisfied’ with Labour’s handling of issues surrounding general practice.

In response to these results, the Department of Health and Social Care said its upcoming 10-year plan, expected next month, ‘will put GPs at the heart of the future of the health service’.

But GPs responding to the survey told Pulse that they feel the Government ‘does not understand how general practice works’ and pointed to insufficient funding and increased national insurance costs as reasons for lack of satisfaction with its handling of general practice.

However, others said it was ‘too early to say’ and that the current Labour Government has ‘not had long enough to fix what the previous government left behind’.

Dr Kate Hodges, a GP partner in Sacriston, near Durham, told Pulse: ‘I still don’t think they “get” general practice or how it works.

‘I think a lot of decisions made based on their own personal experience of general practice rather than listening to GPs.

‘When you hear politicians discussing general practice, it is rare for them to not use an example from their own experience which is often unrepresentative of what it’s like working in general practice.

‘I can’t think of another sector whereby politicians and policy makers consider their own views as trumping the evidence provided by either civil servants or the people doing this for work.’

Leeds GP partner Dr Naweed Bukhari said that GPs are currently waiting to see what the 10-year plan for health will bring for general practice.

NHS England has recently said that the plan will be ‘GP-centric’ but will not come with huge investment in primary care straight away.

Dr Bukhari told Pulse: ‘The weighted global sum payment was £107.57 when Labour got it and within 12 months we are at £121.79 with a further small rise incoming (DDRB) soon.

‘That never would have happened under the Conservatives obviously and whilst the national insurace employer increase offsets some of that, due to the staffing structure of many practices it still does result in a net increase in cashflow for many, including ours.’

Another GP, who wished to remain anonymous, said: ‘I don’t feel that the Government understands the complexities of general practice or just how much value for money we provide.

‘I worry that they will push for a salaried model which won’t provide as good patient care but by then it will be too late.’

RCGP chair Professor Kamila Hawthorne said that the 10-year plan, as well as the workforce plan which is currently under revision, are the Government’s opportunity to ‘show how much they value the hard work’ of GPs.

She said: ‘It’s not surprising to hear that GPs are frustrated about the state of general practice at the moment – they are working incredibly hard in incredibly challenging circumstances day in day out.

‘Workload has escalated both in terms of volume and complexity since 2019, but numbers of GPs have only just started to show an upturn – and we continue to hear reports from members about the nonsensical situation of GPs being unable to find employment upon completion of their training, whilst patients are crying out for appointments.

‘We desperately need to turn this situation around – GPs have been working under the current circumstances for too long. and our teams do for our patients, and show they are serious about shifting more care from hospitals into the community – which will only be possible with the resource and GPs to do it.’

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told Pulse: ‘Rebuilding our broken NHS starts with fixing the front door. This Government inherited a situation where patients couldn’t get a GP appointment, while GPs couldn’t get a job.

‘By cutting red tape and investing more in our NHS, we have already put over 1,700 extra GPs into general practice to deliver more appointments through our Plan for Change.

‘We have also provided the biggest boost to GP funding in years – an extra £1 billion this year – along with a reformed contract that saw almost half the targets slashed.

‘It will take time to fix the front door to the NHS in primary care, but this government is putting the NHS on the road to recovery. Our 10-year plan will put GPs at the heart of the future of the health service and finally deliver the left shift.’

This survey was open between 31 March and 14 April 2025, collating responses using the SurveyMonkey tool. The survey was advertised to our readers via our website and email newsletter, with a prize draw for a £200 John Lewis voucher as an incentive to complete the survey. We asked for GPs’ practice codes or practice names and postcodes, and asked them to confirm what kind of GP they were. We removed those with duplicate email addresses, and searched for duplicate IP addresses, removing obvious duplicate entries. The survey was unweighted, and we do not claim this to be scientific – only a snapshot of the GP population.