NHS England (NHSE) has said it ‘firmly’ expects GP partners to award practice nurses and other practice staff a full 6% pay rise.
A letter from NHSE primary care director, Dr Amanda Doyle, and medical director for primary care, Dr Claire Fuller, confirmed funding will be given via the Global Sum – used to deliver core parts of the GP contract – to uplift the pay of salaried GPs, GP partners and all practice staff for 2024/25.
‘This includes practice nurses, reception, management and other practice staff,’ they wrote.
‘We firmly expect GP partners to honour the intent of this uplift and award the full 6% pay rises to all their staff.’
As previously reported, the GP contract will be amended to uplift the pay elements by 6% – made up of an additional 4% on top of the 2% already given in April. The payment will also be backdated to 1 April 2024.
It follows recommendations from the Review Body on Doctors and Dentists Remuneration (DDRB) on pay for GPs, of which the government said it had accepted in full.
A similar pay rise promise was made to GPNs in England last year – but due to funding issues many nurses did not receive a 6% pay rise – or any rise at all – for 2023/24.
Those among the profession have warned this week that the payment mechanism for GPNs needs overhauling, with ring-fenced money for pay rises.
Meanwhile, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) vowed to take action to ensure GPNs are given a pay rise ‘at least’ in line with NHS staff who have been promised a 5.5% uplift.
As GP practices are self-employed contractors to the NHS, it is for GP practices to determine uplifts in pay for their employees.
In its letter sent Friday, NHSE said the Department of Health and Social Care will consult with the British Medical Association (BMA) on the uplift.
‘Once the details are finalised, NHS England will confirm when practices can expect to receive uplifted payments via the Primary Care bulletin,’ it added.
A version of this article was first published by Pulse’s sister title Nursing in Practice
That’s very generous of them as it is not their money.
How do they intend to cover the increase in NI and pension contributions that practices will also have to find.
Rule of thumb calculation is that for every £1 paid to an employee you have to factor in an extra 25 pence for the add ons.
So a 6% pay rise becomes a 7.5% cost to a practice.
They wonder why practices are sweating over their financial liability.
If you are aiming to falter, fail and potentially collapse your service as seen from multiple GP practice closures, then NHS England & ICBs are the go-to people for advice and instructions. .
if you are aiming to succeed or at least survive, then completely ignoring these entirely inept management groups with wholly unenviable records of absurd policies & leading the NHS from one disaster to another as we currently see, then in this scenario completely ignoring NHSE & their ICB counterparts would be your gateway to survival.
Firmly expect , why?
All the previous minimum wage rises and salaried GP increases were not taken into account. The 6% is also staged and does not appear to include pensions and NI. Barristers got 15% without a fight, junior doctors 22%. This is pathetic.
Three days ago the DHSC media release referred to an “expectation” the uplift would be passed on to GP staff, but went on to state that it was up to GP contractors to determine the pay of their employees. Maybe NHSE need to read the DHSC press release?
The staff expenses element which makes up 44% of the Global Sum is being uplifted by 6%, and this nominally includes a component for employers NI and Superann. But staff costs in many practices exceed 44% of GS. Hence partners may have difficult decisions to make.
Meanwhile the juniors are laughing with their 22%
as usual NHSE lack basic competence in maths. As pointed out above, if they ‘give’ us 6% we need to take our employee NI/ pension contributions from this before we pass on to employees, so obviously they will not be seeing 6% increase in their take home pay
I wish pen pushers in NHSE could grasp even the basic principles of how we pay staff as an employer!