Over 1,000 GP surgeries across England will now receive premises funding from the Government for ‘quick fix’ upgrades this year, instead of 200 as initially announced.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced today that a capital fund of £102m – first announced in the Budget last year – will ‘create additional space’ at 1,000 GP surgeries.
This funding will be spread across far more GP practices than originally announced in October, when the Chancellor said the £100m will fund around 200 capital projects.
DHSC told Pulse that it has found a ‘smarter’ way to use exactly the same money, and that ICBs wanted to make smaller, quicker improvements rather than fewer big projects.
Premises upgrades are expected to begin this summer, and the Government said all projects ‘will be delivered during the 2025-26 financial year’.
DHSC also claimed that these premises refurbishments, which include ‘creating new consultation and treatment rooms’, will result in 8.3 million additional appointments each year.
The funding is available via the Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation fund, which allocated money to ICBs in 2025/26 on a weighted population basis.
NHS England invited proposals from ICBs earlier this year, stipulating that any upgrades ‘must be deliverable by March 2026’ and that approvals will ‘depend on value for money’ and the potential for ‘increased clinical appointments’.
Capital guidance from NHSE said: ‘Given the relatively limited availability of capital available in 2025/26, eligible projects include minor estates schemes focused on refurbishing or reconfiguring existing spaces to improve clinical capacity and productivity.’
The Government told Pulse that premises upgrades funding approvals were based on local need and where the investment would create additional clinical space, specifically to deliver more appointments.
It also said that every single region across England has received premises funding to ensure the benefits are not concentrated in a few areas. In total, 1,027 surgeries will access funding for upgrades, covering all 42 ICBs.
DHSC said today that this is the first national capital fund for general practice since 2020.
Health secretary Wes Streeting said this investment is only possible ‘because of the necessary decisions’ taken by the Government in the Budget, which included hiking National Insurance Contributions for GP practices and other businesses.
‘These are simple fixes for our GP surgeries but for too long they were left to ruin, allowing waiting lists to build and stopping doctors treating more patients,’ Mr Streeting added.
DHSC gave examples of upgrades at Prospect Medical Practice in Norwich, which will ‘create new clinical rooms to deliver more patient consultations’, and Harden Health Centre in Black Country, which will convert ‘vacant office spaces’ into consultation rooms.
Lord Ara Darzi’s report on the state of the NHS last year strongly criticised the lack of capital investment in health infrastructure, estimating that there is a shortfall of £37bn which ‘could have rebuilt or refurbished every GP practice in the country’.
In response to the announcement today, Lord Darzi said: ‘My review found that the primary care estate is simply not fit for purpose, with many GP surgeries housed in inflexible, outdated buildings that cannot enable safe, high-quality care.’
He said the £102m capital funding ‘marks a crucial turning point in addressing this long-standing issue’.
The Government also said this capital funding is ‘just the beginning of the transformation of primary care’, pointing to the upcoming 10-year plan for health which will shift more care out of hospitals and into communities.
NHS England director of primary care Dr Amanda Doyle said that the extra capital funding will help to boost staff retention, as well as creating more capacity for patient care.
‘Bringing GP premises up to a similar condition across England is important to improve patient experience of NHS services, while making primary care a better working environment as we seek to retain and recruit more staff,’ she said.
RCGP surveys have previously found that four in 10 GP practice staff describe their premises as ‘unfit for purpose’, and a third of GPs say their practice is ‘inadequate for providing care for patients’.
College chair Professor Kamila Hawthorne said this ‘not only makes for a poor experience for both patients and practice staff, but it restricts the care and services a practice can provide’.
She continued: ‘Today’s announcement is an encouraging interim measure that shows the Government is listening and acknowledges that inadequate GP infrastructure needs to be addressed. We now need to see this followed up by further long-term investment.’
BMA GP Committee England chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer said that ‘all new funding is welcome’ but that ‘the task facing the Government is far greater than these sums would suggest’.
‘To put it in context, £102m would barely pay for a handful of individual new surgeries, let alone do much to restore the more than 1000 it is aimed at,’ she said.
Dr Bramall-Stainer continued: ‘The Government appreciates the depth of the challenge of GP infrastructure, and we are keen to work with ministers to determine how we can use the Secretary of State’s promise of a new GP practice contract this parliament to overhaul the estate so it is fit for the high quality healthcare we want patients to receive well into the future.’
GP partner and Leicester Medical School tutor Dr Sam Adcock said the effect of this extra funding on patients is likely to be ‘negligible’.
He said: ‘Though it is a welcome announcement, and it highlights the importance of having the correct environment and infrastructure in place to support high quality primary care, it is unlikely to make a substantial difference to the majority of those practices eligible – dividing the pot leaves an average of £100,000 per practice.
‘The wider issues of a reducing workforce, migration of skilled workers out of the UK, underfunded Primary Care and difficulty accessing Secondary Care is likely to make the effect of this negligible to the average patient in the UK.’
In January, the health secretary said that fixing GP premises problems ‘will take time’ when he faced questions from MPs after the roof of a surgery collapsed in Oxfordshire.
The Government has also been urged this year to consider abolishing NHS Property Services and writing off GP debt, in a report by the NHS Confederation.
