Northern Ireland GP leaders declare ‘no confidence’ in health minister

GP leaders in Northern Ireland have declared they have ‘no confidence’ in the current minister of health Mike Nesbitt and in the Department of Health.

At their conference in Belfast on Saturday, LMC representatives passed a vote of no confidence in the minister and his department, and they also asked the BMA to produce further options for collective action.

Mr Nesbitt imposed the GMS contract for 2025/26 on GP practices for the first time this year, despite the offer being overwhelmingly rejected by the profession.

This led GPs in Northern Ireland to begin collective action this summer, implementing measures ‘designed to reduce the unfunded work they carry out’.

At the conference, the BMA’s Northern Ireland GP committee was also 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’.

A motion for a referendum of the profession on ‘leaving the NHS’ was taken as reference, meaning that does not become BMA policy, but the NI GPC will take into account what the motion is trying to achieve when setting policy or in negotiations.

LMC representatives also voted in favour of not engaging in any discussion regarding ‘neighbourhood systems of care’ until there is a guarantee from the NI Government of ‘substantial investment into core GP service’.

Opening the conference, NI GPC chair Dr Frances O’Hagan said: ‘From this time last year, when we had the minister standing here, it has been really challenging.

‘And when the minister was here and delivered his speech, I knew I was in trouble. But, boy, I didn’t realise just how bad it was going to get. 


‘We have had a huge challenge this year, and I see further challenges going ahead. So what do we need? Take us back to basics; I’m very clear what we need in general practice and we have said it all along, funding into core general practice, including indemnity for all GPs, and for our national insurance costs to be covered.’

She also mentioned NI Government plans to ‘introduce a neighbourhood model’ and highlighted that this cannot work ‘without GPs front and centre’. 


Earlier this year the NI Government had announced plans to expand primary care teams, with funding secured to push ahead with growing the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) programme which will ‘open up a million more appointments by 2033’.

Dr O’Hagan added: ‘We need to get a message from every GP in this room, and every GP across Northern Ireland, that they cannot do this without us at the centre of it and without general practice boosted up and our funding improved we won’t be there to be involved in any possible neighbourhood model. Without GPs there is going to be no neighbourhood model. It will not work.’

Dr O’Hagan also urged GP leaders to continue with collective action and said that GPs have ‘absolutely no intention of going back’.  

She said: ‘I want us to present a united front when talking about all new developments going forward. I want us to keep going with the collective action. Many of the actions is work we won’t take back even if we call off the dispute or get back into negotiations.

‘We have absolutely no intention of going back to doing these things because these are things we should never have been doing in the first place.’

In response to the vote of no confidence, Mr Nesbitt said: ‘The GPs are entitled to their opinion. My door is always open for discussion.’