GPs warn of ‘underfunding’ as primary care share lags behind NHS growth

The Government has revealed how much money NHS England and ICBs spent on primary care services in the last decade, showing that primary care consistently received one of the lowest shares of funding.

The data, shared by secondary care minister Karin Smyth, showed that in 2024/25 £14.5bn was spent on primary care (8% of the total expenditure), compared to £74.7bn spent on acute services (42%).

It also showed that primary care spending grew since 2015 but has not kept pace with the total growth of the NHS budget, which grew from £99.4bn in 2015/26 to £175.2bn in 2024/25.

The Government said that it hasn’t shared information for 2025/26 because it is ‘unvalidated’ and ‘not quality assured’.

It provided the data in response to a question from health and social care committee chair and Lib Dem MP Layla Moran.

Ms Smyth said: ‘The table sets out the spend categories for the specified services commissioned by NHS England and the integrated care boards, formerly the clinical commissioning groups, using audited figures between 2015/16 to 2024/25.

‘Information for 2025/26 is unvalidated and not quality assured. In-year data is not routinely reported on with the breakdown of spend used in this answer and would be subject to material change between plan and outturn as a result.

‘75% of NHS England commissioned social services are within the community services line.’

It comes as the Treasury is currently undertaking a review focusing on how to shift funding from hospitals into primary and community care, including testing new financial flows.

The RCGP told Pulse that the data showed that general practice is delivering ‘the vast majority of patient care with a shrinking share of the budget’.

RCGP vice chair Dr Munro Stewart said: ‘This impacts patients’ ability to access their GP and means that GPs around the country are having to work under increasingly unsafe conditions.

‘This is yet more evidence that, despite over a decade of promises to expand general practice, we have not had the funding or support to recruit and retain enough GPs to meet our patients’ needs.

‘The College has long called for a greater share of NHS funding to be directed towards general practice. The Government must now learn from the mistakes of the past and use the upcoming 10-year workforce plan to set out how it will deliver the investment and workforce needed to ensure patients can access safe, timely care in their communities.’

BMA GP committee chair Dr Katie Bramall said that the figures were ‘disgraceful’ and added that the union has previously called on the Government to introduce a ‘minimum general practice investment standard’.

She said: ‘General practice deserves a minimum investment guarantee and year on year growth to achieve a baseline of 15% NHS share as a minimum.’

Commenting on the data, the Doctors’ Association GP spokesperson Dr Steve Taylor told Pulse that the data demonstrates underfunding of primary care under successive governments.

He said: ‘Successive governments have underfunded primary care and in particular GP services. These figures demonstrate what is seen week by week with issues of access to services.

‘These figures demonstrate government would be better off spending NHS funding on community services rather than gimmicks. There are 6,300 neighbourhood centres already in walking distance of 80% of people, GP practices.’

Earlier this week, a leading think tank argued that the Government should prioritise moving resources to primary care services to fix the NHS, rather than considering different funding models.