GP collective action to escalate next month if Government ‘fails to provide concessions’

The BMA will announce a new collective action for GP practices next month, should the Government fail to provide ‘sufficient concessions’ on the imposed contract, the union has revealed.

As part of collective action which started at the beginning of the month, GPs should notify their ICB that they are stopping voluntarily sharing data using a template letter provided by the union’s GP committee.

In new guidance, the GPC revealed that as of next month the committee will announce a separate action unless the Government agrees to put safeguards in place around unlimited access.

It comes as the Government remains in discussions with the GPC, as it said that collective action will have ‘no impact’.

The GPC document said: ‘This is the first letter in a sequence, so you need to embed this foundation enquiry stage, in order to be able to “up the ante” next month, should Government fail to provide sufficient concessions to the imposed 2026/27 GMS contract.

‘Alongside May’s data sharing scrutiny progressing, June will also have a separate discrete action announced – unless Government stops the escalation by heeding our genuine concerns around capacity against unlimited access to safeguard practices going forward. We will be seeking to continue negotiations with Government in the weeks ahead.’

Pulse has contacted the Department of Health and Social Care for comment.

Last week, GPs in several areas were advised by their LMCs to use ‘tweaked’ versions of the BMA’s template letter.

The GPC said that ‘there has been concern from some LMCs’ that the letter itself might ‘lead to claims against practices around defamation’, given that it mentions specific organisations such as Palantir. However, the guidance reassured GPs that the letter is not defamatory.

It said: ‘Both the BMA internal legal team, and an independent external KC who specialises in defamation, have advised that this letter does not expose senders to claims of defamation.

‘The letter is a private communication between a practice and an ICS. It could be deemed to be covered by qualified privilege, which is also protective, but in any case, a company would have to demonstrate that the terms used in a private letter caused serious financial harm.

‘The KC whose opinion we sought counselled the BMA that whilst any confrontational action may involve the potential for a confrontational response, the collective action letter is neither defamatory nor unlawful.’

In a separate document, the GPC explained why GP collective action is focusing on data transparency, saying that the NHS has been ‘dominated’ by the one big idea that the solution to everything is ‘digital and data’, and how this could be detrimental.

The guidance said: ‘The big attraction of a single big idea is to make everything so simple. Anyone can grasp it, and anyone can apply it.

‘The user does not need to be able to think or understand what’s in front of them; like a child creating a dot-to-dot picture. E.g. “the single point of access” or “the digital front door”. They sound beguilingly simple – what could possibly go wrong?’

The GPC added that the end result from the letter that practices have been asked to send should be a ‘clear list’ of which data flows the ICB are managing, their legal basis for doing so, whether they are obligatory under signed contracts, and whether opt-outs are being ‘honoured and appropriately dealt with’.