Funding increase ‘expectations’ will make GP contract talks ‘challenging’, says NHSE
NHS England has expressed concern that ‘expectations for increased funding’ mean negotiations for the 2026/27 GP contract‘ will be challenging.
In papers circulated in advance of last week’s NHS England board meeting, it identified a low-to-medium risk that ‘demand exceeds capacity’ in primary care.
The papers said upcoming 2026/27 GP contract discussions were an opportunity to mitigate that risk, with preparations ‘underway’.
However it added the discussions were ‘expected to be challenging due to stakeholder expectations for increased funding’.
The board papers also saw NHSE chief executive Sir Jim Mackey welcome the 1 October GP contract changes – which mandated practices to keep online consultation tools open through core hours – from a patient perspective, but caution around the workload created as a result.
He said: ‘There’s powerful, demonstrable, robust data that shows that people are actually with what what’s being done, but that is at the expense of a lot of hard work [from] colleagues in primary care.’
NHSE non-executive director Professor Sir Sam Everington, who is also the president of the RCGP, added within the papers: ‘I think the total triage massive increased use in online requests for consultations.
‘There are some problems and stresses that we clearly need to deal with, but [general practice] is one part of the NHS where patient satisfaction is going up, productivity is up. It’s a really good news story.’
It comes as contract discussions were due to start last week, with the BMA welcoming an ‘approach’ from the Government after having been sidelined from regular two-way negotiations on contract terms amid GPC England’s dispute with Government over the 1 October changes.
Also last week, Pulse revealed the BMA would not be pushing for GP collective action before next Spring.
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READERS' COMMENTS [9]
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NHSE have never found saying ‘no’ a challenge.
A low to medium risk that demand exceeds capacity?
ROFL. It already exceeds capacity all of the time.
It used to only go quiet Christmas Eve and England World Cup matches. That stopped about a decade ago.
Actually, he does have a point.
Demand never exceeds capacity.
There are never more patients seen in Primary Care than Primary Care can see.
The slack is always taken up by someone staying late to ensure that everything is done, or getting it seen somewhere else, which stil counts.
They will soon be auctioning off the last few remaining appointments, and then the demand never will exceed capacity, but the price will go up masssively at popular times. To the detriment of poor patients, who will go elsewhere.
Reduced funding then reduced service?
“patient satisfaction is going up, productivity is up. It’s a really good news story.” 🤣🤣🤣 Christmas has come early..
BMA need to get tough within the context of the contract if significant funding and capacity issues are not addressed
Consultations are up 20% funding needs to increase by 20% above inflation.
And if they don’t achieve that nhs England need to face a similar financial penalty. Prescribing Lipitor, forxiga, and plavix instead of atorvastatin dapagliflozin and clopidogrel harms no patients, turns nobody away but makes the point that we are not going to be pushed around to never ending service demands being met by rules and legislation rather than the right number of GPs and appropriate funding.
Someone can work out the right combination of drugs required to make the numbers match with the proposed gap of funding.
Some problems and stresses – think Prof Everington should go into the real world. . In over 30 years never seen stress like it in our team. I expect several GP s will leave permanently very soon !
Let alone the unbridled risk total triage brings with such huge numbers and the detrimental effect to those with health anxiety of unbridled access
In other news, clueless govt lackeys spew more uninformed nonsense