Pay uplifts for Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) staff will be an ‘unfunded cost pressure’ for PCNs, according to the BMA.
An internal BMA letter to GPC England members, sent yesterday and seen by Pulse, has clarified how pay rises recommended by the independent pay review bodies will be implemented.
At the end of last month, the NHS Pay Review Body recommended an uplift of 5.5% for staff on Agenda for Change (AfC), and the GPCE has suggested this should cover ARRS staff too.
The letter said that for ‘ARRS staff on AfC contracts these are normally reimbursed in line with AfC salary scales’.
In April, the total funding uplift to GP contract investment was based on a ‘planning assumption of 2% pay growth uplift to the overall ARRS’.
As such, the GPCE has said that ARRS staff would be entitled to an additional 3.5% on top of this 2%.
Last year, reimbursements under the ARRS were uplifted to match the AfC pay increase of 5%, but there was no overall change to the total funding available.
The GPCE has suggested that the same is true this year, and Pulse has asked the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to respond to these claims.
The letter to GP Committee members and LMCs said: ‘Following the NHS Pay Review Body recommendation, the AfC (Agenda for Change) pay scales have been uplifted by 5.5% for 2024/25; the ARRS funding allocation was uplifted by 2% for staff pay from April 2024.
‘For ARRS staff on AfC contracts these are normally reimbursed in line with AfC salary scales. At present, the extra 3.5% will therefore be an unfunded cost pressure for the overall PCN ARRS budget.’
The same letter also revealed that the global sum will rise by a total 7.4% this year in order to fund the 6% pay rise for GP partners, salaried GPs, and practice staff.
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Those with long memories will recall that PMS salaried GP and Nurse Practitioner funding was capped at the 2004-05 baseline, with no futher uplift for inflation. ARRS funding will similarly be eroded by inflation before the plug is pulled.