Global sum increased by £1.55 per patient to implement DDRB GP pay uplift  

The global sum for GP practices in England has been increased from £121.79 to £123.34 per patient to implement the 4% staff pay rise recommended by the pay review body, NHS England has confirmed.

For 2025/26 the Government committed to ‘uplifting the pay element of the GP contract’ by 4% following the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) recommendations around partners, salaried GPs and staff.

Now NHS England has confirmed the global sum will rise by 1.2% to cover the recommended pay rise, in addition to the 2.8% already included in contract funding at the start of 2025/26. This will be backdated to April, it confirmed.

In a letter to ICBs today, NHS England said: ‘The GP contract has been amended to uplift the pay elements of the contract by 4%, backdated to 1 April 2025 (a further 1.2% in addition to the 2.8% already included in contract funding at the start of 2025/26).

‘The DDRB pay uplift will be implemented through an increase to the global sum, with payments backdated to 1 April 2025 in the August Primary Care Support England (PCSE) payment runs. The new global sum for 2025/26 is £123.34.’

In a message to GPs this afternoon, NHS England said this increase to practice funding ‘enables the 4% pay uplift with backdated payments to be passed on to salaried and contractor GPs’ and pay uplifts for other practice staff.

‘NHS England expects general practice contractors to implement pay rises to other practice staff in line with the uplift in funding they are receiving,’ it added.

In addition, the Government has also agreed to fund a 4% uplift to the locum reimbursement maximum entitlements available under Part 4 of the Statement of Financial Entitlements – as well as introducing a new provision from 6 April 2025 which allows practices to claim locum reimbursement for GPs absent due to neonatal leave.

It has also agreed to backdate uplifts to the ARRS maximum reimbursement amounts to 1 April 2025 and uplift the pay-related elements of the general practice workforce transformational (SDF) funding. 

Last week, the health secretary told the DDRB that there will be ‘no additional funding’ for pay increases for doctors in 2026/27, as he wrote to the pay review body to formally commence the annual pay review.

He asked the new chair of the DDRB Mark Hoble to start the process earlier than usual to allow the review body ‘to give due consideration to the relevant evidence’ and to return to ‘more timely annual pay processes’.