Exclusive Primary care minister Stephen Kinnock has committed to a future for the GP partnership model, on the day the Government said it will renegotiate the national contract.
Speaking today at the Pulse LIVE London conference, Mr Kinnock responded to a direct question from Pulse, when he said he is ‘absolutely committed’ to the model.
This followed on from a special address to GPs, where the minister said the Government wants to work ‘in partnership’ with the profession to ‘shape the future of general practice’.
Mr Kinnock was asked, in light of the commitment to a wholesale GMS renegotiation by 2028, whether this Government sees the partnership model as a staple of that new contract.
To which he said: ‘We are absolutely committed to it. Clearly, where we see partnerships that work very well, and there’s a huge amount of advantage to be had around pooling resources. If you think about the the broad concept of the neighbourhood health service model, it’s about integration. It’s about bringing resources together. It’s about pooling resources. It’s about enabling patients to get a holistic set of supports and treatments. And partnerships absolutely should be part of that mix.’
He added that although partnership is ‘not always the model that works best’, the Government is ‘not in the business of trying to micromanage what works best at a local level’.
‘We are in the business of setting challenging targets jointly with our partners, holding each other accountable for the delivery of those partnerships, and ultimately doing what is necessary and best. For the people and the patients that we serve,’ he said.
‘And if partnerships are the right model to deliver that, we do that. If there is a different model, we do that. We don’t have a dogmatic or ideological position on that at all.’
In his speech, Mr Kinnock thanked the GP Committee of the BMA for the ‘collaborative and constructive way in which they engaged in the recent contract consultation’.
He said, on the 2025/26 contract: ‘This is a fair deal for patients, the profession and the public purse, and it’s the product of a relationship that’s built on dialogue, trust and respect in place of strife. We see the 25/26 GP contract as an important first step in shifting the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and into the community and towards rebuilding general practice.’
And, asked whether he was concerned about further GP collective action, in light of today’s conference of England’s LMCs, Mr Kinnock argued that the relationship with the profession was now repaired.
He said: ‘I obviously hope that there won’t be any further collective action. I really, genuinely meant what I said in the speech that we’ve had a very constructive and collaborative engagement with the GPC, and I think we’ve fixed the foundations of that relationship.
‘What we have to do now is crack on and kick on and make sure that we move forward into an ambitious and bold reform agenda. There’s so much common ground between us because the Government needs to free up GPs so that they can do what they love doing and what they’re best at doing, which is serving their patients.’
He said that would involve ‘cutting bureaucracy’ and ‘enabling, through the shift from analogue to digital’.
‘That means improving continuity of care and bringing back the family doctor. Those are shared agendas. So what we just need to do is make sure that we have a good dialogue about how we get there and get into the detail of it,’ he said.
‘We have confirmed that we’re absolutely committed to having that overhaul of, and a new contract going into the rest of this Parliament.’
Earlier today, the BMA announced the Government has formally committed to renegotiating a ‘completely new’ national GP contract by the end of their parliamentary term.
This morning, at a special conference of LMCs, GP Committee England chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer welcomed the commitment, and the BMA has now confirmed that it is no longer in dispute with the Government.
