BMA wants wholesale new GP contract to be agreed 'by end of 2026'

The BMA is aiming to agree a totally new contract for general practice by the end of next year, its GP committee for England has revealed.

During a webinar on the 2025/26 contract changes yesterday night, the committee laid out their future plans for negotiations with the Government, with a ‘target date’ to agree the new contract ‘between July and December 2026’.

The BMA’s agreement to the current 2025/26 contract was conditional on the Government’s commitment to negotiate a wholesale new GP contract within this Parliament.

And last month, health secretary Wes Streeting provided his assurance to ‘secure a new substantive’ contract ‘without preconditions’ and ‘based on collaborative work’ with the profession.

A timeline on ‘contractual aspirations’ shared during the webinar yesterday (see below) showed that the GPC has identified a ‘window to negotiate a new deal’ between July this year and June 2026, with a target date to agree the new GMS contract ‘by December 2026’.

The committee has cited April 2028 as ‘the latest’ for the new contract to be implemented, and chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer clarified yesterday that ‘within this Parliament’ really means ‘before the end of 2028’, which is when the Government ‘will probably go back to the ballot box’.

Dr Bramall-Stainer also highlighted the ‘storm clouds on the horizon’ for the profession, including ‘data in the GP record, NHS Property Services, premises and capital investment, the vulnerability of the demographics in the partnership model’.

She said these issues will be ‘impossible to fix’ unless they ‘wrap it all into the planning for a new contract’.

Dr Bramall-Stainer said she is not in the job ‘to bring a begging bowl’ to the Government every year ‘to squeeze out an extra couple of £100m’.

She added: ‘The reason GPC England voted to place trust in this Government’s offer for this year was because there’s a precious, narrow window of opportunity before us.’

She described the promise of a new contract as ‘jam tomorrow’, but the decision to accept his year’s contract changes was a ‘strategic, political, considered calculation of where we are right now’.

The GPCE also told attendees that the upcoming Spending Review – which sets the Government’s spending plans for the next three years – is a crucial ‘window’ for general practice.

Dr Bramall-Stainer said: ‘This is the time to nail down an agreement for the potential for a new GP contract. If you miss this window, you’ve missed it for another, what, 20 years? Will GMS survive 20 years? Would it survive five years?’

On priorities for the new contract, the committee highlighted the need to ‘restore core’ GP funding, to focus on continuity of care, and to ‘wrap’ neighbourhood care around the practice and its registered list.

The committee has also previously revealed that it is pushing the Government to agree a ‘full reimbursement mechanism’ for salaried GPs, as per the old Red Book GMS contract.

But Dr Bramall-Stainer said that there is also ‘something about not holding on to things that are potentially bad for us’, citing the risks around unlimited liabilities within the partnership model.

She added: ‘Moving or having the opportunity to move to something where those liabilities were limited would make it a much more attractive proposition for the future for people to join partnerships and practices.

‘It would make it far more likely for banks to approve of loans and the continuation of funds into the businesses.’

Pulse has looked at what the new contract could look like, including a possibility for the outcome of the negotiations to be ‘subject to approval’ from the profession ‘via one or more referenda’ of BMA members.