The average salary and daily rates for salaried GPs and locums increased over the past year, by 2.9% and 11.9% respectively, according to a survey.
The results showed that the average session rate for a salaried GP this year is £10,509, which is an increase on last year’s £10,196.
Recruitment agency Menlo Park conducted a survey of 549 GPs, also finding that that GP partners are earning an average of £138,400 (FTE) this year, an 8% increase on last year.
Meanwhile, the average number of hours worked per week decreased for GP partners, from around 42.1 hours in 2022 to 37.2 hours in 2023.
However, the survey, which also asked GPs about their level of satisfaction, found that only 32% of respondents are satisfied with their salary or clinical workload, and 59% would consider leaving general practice completely.
In July, the Government accepted a pay review body recommendation for a 6% pay rise for NHS staff, which included salaried GPs and other practice staff, but not partners.
Menlo Park said it is ‘promising to see earnings increase across the board’, but that they are still ‘struggling to keep pace with inflation’, while workload has decreased only ‘marginally’.
The report said: ‘This is not to say that GPs are not run off their feet, but perhaps on reflection our 2022 survey displayed the peak of workload with the height of the Covid vaccine to contend with.’
The agency said the higher GP partner earnings this year could be a result of increased revenue from the Covid vaccine rollout, and may not be sustained throughout the next year.
According to the survey, locum daily rates rose from £619 last year to £693, however it did not capture some of the ‘exceptionally higher rates’ seen last year, such as those exceeding £1,200.
While the number of weekly hours worked by salaried GPs decreased from 33.5 to 32.2, Menlo Park found that the average salaried GP now works 5.5 hours per session they are paid for, which is longer than the BMA’s safe working guidance of four hours and 10 minutes per session.
Other findings from Menlo Park’s survey
- Partners take either six or seven weeks leave
- Locums are not entitled to any paid leave but nearly a third take more than 10 weeks unpaid leave annually
- 77% of locum GPs do not take time off to study (they are not entitled to any paid study leave)
- Only 16% of practices offer salaried GPs one weekly CPD session of four hours 10 minutes (down from 18.3% last year)
- In 2022, GP Partners dealt with on average 20 online enquiries daily – in 2023, this has reduced to 8 daily online enquiries
- Time spent doing admin has decreased for GP partners from an average of two hours 28 minutes per day last year to two hours this year
- Last year, salaried GPs averaged 15 F2F appointments and 20 telephone consultations, whereas this year, the average is 17 F2F appointments and 14 telephone consultations.
- 93% of GPs feel valued by their patients, but only 13% feel valued by the Government
However, doctors attending the BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) in July voted in favour of supporting GPs who refuse to declare their income.
NHS England confirmed over the summer that the NHS Staff Survey, carried out every year to improve employees’ working conditions, will be extended to GP staff for the very first time from October.
A salaried GP get 1 in every 9 sessions for Study, more if they also get ‘study leave’ in addition.
This equates to 5.5 weeks study leave per year, in addition to about 6 weeks of annual leave, plus bank holidays.
Locums apparently appear to take about 10 weeks leave per year, INCLUDING study leave.
If Partners have had an 8% pay rise, then there is not much excuse for not giving the 6% pay rise to employed staff (including salaried GPs), so telling staff the Partnership has not received yet the money for their salary uplifts is not on really.
Was publishing this survey just now helpful, overall? Or did it just point out (however misleadingly), that Partners got a better pay rise, but are delating handing over rise to staff? First, ensure gun not pointing at foot, then….
Is this the financial year 2022-2023, because my earnings as a partner went down…a lot.
We assumed it was the withdrawal of Covid funding?
Also the new ICB reduced our dmard funding to a quarter of previous year.
Maybe it’s because our PCN did not sign up to Covid vaccine.
We are doing it this cycle though.
Down 10% for me. Mostly caused by rising costs. As for workload, it’s off the scale and feels truly unsafe.
Some of this will be due to Partners leaving -which increases pay for the last men and women standing (while they still can). It won’t be an incentive for staying…
Exactly this
For goodness sake our OVERALL partnership earnings are down, especially if we remove Covid vaccines…..however there are now only 2 GP partners in my practice instead of 3 because we cannot recruit or find locums to cover, as a result I earned about 10% more than the year before… oh whoopee….BUT MY WORKLOAD AND STRESS IS THROUGH THE ROOF.
I’m fairly certain this is a survey reported now and conducted in earlier in 2023.
That means GP partners are reporting their most recent known earnings, which would be from the accounts in 21-22. They are unlikely to be able to report earnings in 22-23 as that information is only just being made available.
And the comparison was from the same survey a year before – so comparison to 20-21.
So between 20-21 and 21-22 there has been an increase in partner earnings. Of course there was with so much extra work, loads of practices doing many covid jabs and so on. That information is already been reported (very recently) in the official GP earnings report.
And between 21-22 and 22-23 there will be a big reduction in earnings, as fewer vaccines and less covid support and staff costs, energy costs and other costs show up in the accounts. The workload however hasn’t seemed to reduce.
The salaried doctors and locums are more likely to report contemporary earnings.
So SB and Dr No are probably accurate in wondering why their accounts are down but the survey is saying up. It is just that it is measuring a different year.
22/23 Partnership profits down by 17% with individual income down by 6% only due to being unable to replace a partner with either partner or salaried GP. Staff have been very understanding when navigating the proposed pay rise of 6%. So once it enters the practice will be really happy to pass it on. Hopefully this will not be used to deny any contract uplift to afford this though 🤔
I agree with above. Our 3rd partner retired in April 2020 and we got a pick up in earnings. This has subsequently been used on extra nursing, doctor, paramedic and GPA sessions and we are way down in pound terms from 3 years ago never mind inflation.
Re workload. To try and make sense of is I got hold of the data on prescriptions, letters and results for as far back as I could (10 years). From 2013-2018 flat-ish but then a massive hike which is accelerating not falling. 2018-2022/3 we saw 22% more prescriptions, 29% more letters and 100% more results. 100%! So much more monitoring and secondary care bloods. I recommend you do the same – it’s demoralising but puts perspective on how it feels. The annoying thing is that this is invisible work and the government is either genuinely ignorant or wilfully ignorant of it – either way we are doomed.
I went to a meeting a few weeks ago where people ‘high up’ were openly discussing how things may look after primary care collapses. There’s a fair bit of fiddling while Rome burns going on.
Sorry to rant, I rarely comment but this got to me for some reason. I’m sure it will be used to roll back on the funding for the pay rise.
Thanks, that is what I thought. Misleading reporting?
Average working week of 37.2 hours for a GP partner ??? Where ???
I’m a “full time” ie 7 session partner ; supposed to do 6 sessions clinical (ie patient contact) and 1 practice admin (business management not clinical workflow) session per week. That’s usually a 50 hour week (before any extra sessions to cover annual or sick leave).
Over the summer (all July and August) I worked 68-78.5 hours per week (this does not include any lunch breaks or snack breaks) in order to provide holiday cover for colleagues due to lack of locums willing to work in school holidays. This doesn’t include any out of hours sessions, which I don’t have time to do, just work for the practice.
The one “light” ie 68 hour week I didn’t do any workflow on the Saturday – I was helping my son move house instead.
And our practice income continues to go down, partly due to inflation but mostly due to the locum expenses required to keep the practice running with safe staffing levels.
I’m not getting any younger and though I worked more hours a week some weeks when I was a House Officer or SHO, it was never that many for so many consecutive weeks, and the hospital work involved far more routine work, much less complex thinking, no supervision or support of junior colleagues, and minimal responsibility… I don’t think I will be able to manage another 17 years (till I hit my “state” retirement age of 68) if the NHS continues like this.
Rant over. Back to the phones…
Partners earning more? None of the ones I know are.
RPI down to ~6%; GP funding +2%; staff pay +6%; -4% pay cut for partners. The year before pay cuts to GPs were much worse. . That’s having predictable consequences, especially as pension rises are well in excess of that.