General practice, the most efficient and productive part of the NHS, is being driven to collapse
Across England, practices are working at an unprecedented level of activity with daily appointments running at almost 1.5 million. Despite this, the value of funding into the national contract is at a nadir with GP practices receiving 5.5p in every NHS pound. At an individual patient level, the average core contract payment equates to £112.50 per annum, around 31p per patient per day. It’s no wonder practices are closing – they’re no longer financially viable.
GPCE's vision
'Patients First: Why general practice is broken & how we can fix it' details the essential changes that need to happen to stop the loss of local practices, to retain experienced NHS GPs in their surgeries, and to fund practices to take on more GPs and more practice nurses to deliver more appointments.
We focus on:
- firstly, what patients need right now, without the need for additional funding
- next, what is needed in the NHS 10-year plan and in 2025/26 to stabilise collapsing GP services for patients, and
- beyond that, for the Government to work in partnership with us to secure a new deal for GP practices across England which will deliver what patients need within this Parliament.
Increasing investment
Our additional ask of 11p per patient per day for essential services in 2025/26, increasing current investment from £112.50 to £152.50 per year, will stabilise GP practices and buy us time to secure a new contract fit for the future to deliver:
- More GPs and more practice nurses
- Stability to stop the NHS GP ‘brain drain’
- Essential continuity of care to reduce hospital referrals and emergency admissions
- Essential overdue investment in general practice services across England
- Fair pay and conditions for the whole practice-employed team
We hope these solutions can be taken and shaped into policies that will make a difference to patients first and foremost. They will stabilise GP practices on the brink of closure, keep our most experienced GPs in practices, provide roles to those GPs facing unemployment and provide more appointments and more services to patients, closer to home, in the most productive and cost-efficient sector of the NHS.