BMA demands right for GP partners to ‘legally participate’ in industrial action

New employment rights legislation must allow GP partners to ‘legally participate’ in industrial action, the BMA has told the House of Lords.

The doctors’ union has called for a series of amendments to the Employment Rights Bill, which proposes ‘extensive’ reforms to trade union regulation and is currently being scrutinised by peers.

One of the union’s demands is for the bill to ‘empower all workers to take part in industrial action’, highlighting that there is ‘obviously a deeply unfair imbalance’ whereby GP partners are more restricted than other workers. 

This means GP partners – along with medical students and self-employed doctors – are left ‘without a voice’ and at risk of ‘unfair treatment’, the BMA warned.

The union believes the bill ‘could go further’ and ensure that ‘all workers are able to take lawful strike action’, better safeguard workers from any ‘adverse consequences’ of taking industrial, and broaden the scope of lawful disputes to ensure that workers can use industrial action to ‘address all parts of their working lives’.

The BMA’s submission to the bill’s second reading in the House of Lords said: ‘GP partners, as independent contractors, are restricted in what action they can take to improve conditions and services, as they will very likely break their service agreement with the NHS. 

‘This means that if a GP took part in industrial action, they would breach their contract with the NHS and the NHS would be able to issue a breach remediation notice and potentially terminate the contract.’

It called for reforms to competition law and the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act (TULRCA) to allow independent contractors to ‘organise industrial action without breaching their contracts’. 

It added: ‘Current competition law and trade union regulation also restricts self-employed workers from
collectively organising industrial action.

‘Reforms to competition law and TULRCA that would enable both independent contractors to organise industrial action without breaching their contracts, and self-employed doctors to collectively organise industrial action would be warmly welcomed by the BMA.’

Other demands from the BMA included the removal of time limits on ballot mandates to allow the mandate to last as long as the dispute, as well as a broadening of the scope of lawful disputes to include the ‘legalisation of secondary action’.

The bill will now be scrutinised further by the House of Lords at committee stage, but the BMA’s concerns around industrial action have not been addressed by peers during their debates so far. 

During GP collective action, which started last summer, the BMA’s GP Committee England stressed that all of the possible actions were already permissible within the contract and would not result in a breach. 

But the union had previously taken legal advice which suggested that independent contractors can in fact take industrial action. 

And at a recent special conference on LMCs, GP leaders were set to debate whether to escalate industrial action in England to include ‘coordinated’ practice closures for an agreed period of time and ‘collective walkouts’. 

However, the BMA has so far kept the results of this conference private, and the GPCE has been clear that it is no longer in dispute with the Government since it has accepted the 2025/26 contract changes.

Most recently practices have been advised by the BMA to continue collective action locally, aimed at ICBs rather than the Government.