The new GP contract will reduce the number of QOF targets in order to reduce bureaucracy, while nurses are also confirmed to become included in ARRS.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has today confirmed that the number of indicators, which were reduced from 74 to 55 this year, will be lowered further as part of the next contract.
The Government’s statement also confirmed that ARRS, which currently allows recruitment of 17 roles in primary care but not GPs, will be expanded to cover nurses and mental health practitioners.
The Government is currently consulting the public on the future of QOF, with a question on whether it should be scrapped altogether.
When the 2023/24 GP contract was announced, NHS England said it intended to make the incentive programme ‘more streamlined and focused’.
Earlier this week, Pulse exclusively reported that the Government had initially offered a 1.9% uplift to baseline GMS funding for the 2024/25 contract.
The BMA said this offer was ‘grossly inadequate’ and GP Committee England chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer met with primary care minister Andrea Leadsom in efforts to improve it.
Dame Leadsom’s letter in response revealed that the Government will reconsider its GP funding uplift offer once the independent pay review body (DDRB) makes a recommendation in ‘the coming months’.
She also indicated that funding could be ringfenced within the GMS contract to pay for GP staff.
The GPC voted down the Government’s 1.9% uplift offer at its meeting yesterday, and instructed negotiators to continue talks ahead of a referendum to members on 1 March.
A DHSC spokesperson confirmed that ‘further pay uplifts may be made to the GP contract’ following the Government’s response to the DDRB’s recommendation.
They said: ‘GPs are at the heart of our communities and we hugely value their vital work. This contract will reduce unnecessary and burdensome bureaucracy so they can spend more valuable time with their patients, while also giving them greater autonomy to run local practices.’
The GPC has called for GPs to be included in the ARRS, and a petition with the same aim has gathered over 10,000 signatures.
One can smell the feted stench on another imposed contract coming our way , roll on April.
STRIKE
None of that helps sustain our business
Long term plan to de professionalize GPs and doctors and get cheaper staff to deliver a dodgy service.
I have heard that ANPs in ARSS but not normal practice nurses ( from BMA side) ,
We value GP services so we get all except GP’s in the contract. Blessed are our PCN Directors and Partners-no amount of of claps and work will break their back. not even not taking out monthly drawing. They understand 1.9 % is also brilliant-sorry we forgot only one additional
zero which has no value anyways.
This is the point that it has become clear that going forward GMS will no longer be able to fund our practices with a basic level of staffing.
If we believe in individual practices then this is unsatisfactory but if we believe in practices in PCNs merging into 1 super practice then this is another step on the journey and will be irreversible if accepted and we should get on with it.
The profession can no longer kick this decision down the road although some may say the real decision is after the general election.
It is important this is a profession choice and not a choice of PCN CDs and close to retirement partners who will not to have to practice the majority of their career within the voted structure.
Dear All,
Thats right chaps, that foot in the door gets ever bigger, next it will be your practice based nurses, then it’ll be your salaried doctors and you’ll eventually end up with a contract that pays your drawings alone with everyone who works for you funded via the PCN and under direct government control. Job done, well done.
Regards
Paul C….. now a retiree.
And if the principals have no drawings (as claimed by one practice recently reported by Pulse), then they’ll have basically turned themselves into indentured labourers!! ..stop subsisting on the thin gruel of hope that HMG’s homunculi keep dishing up from their pretend “negotiations” playbook, have some self-respect, stop appeasement, and strike…do it for our noble profession and your patients who deserve a decent NHS.
(also newly retired, baby boomer)
.
.I managed to post a blank message by accident, but the irony is that this offer is so poor it has left me speechless.
Mobilising for action is the only response for such derisory terms. The inescapable conclusion is that their agenda is to destroy our profession for cheaper labour.
Until now my view on collective action was- anything that doesn’t affect patient care, like don’t engage with appraisal malarkey. After learning about this “offer” I am happy to shut the surgery, say, every Monday for as long as it takes to get the message through. And I am not going to stay late other days to catch up with work. Receptionists will be trained to answer that Dr will get to your query when they can. We all have to do this. Otherwise we will be isolated and vulnerable.
We are standing with our backs over a cliff, we can’t continue giving ground. We have to push back. Otherwise there will be no healthcare and soon
Dear All,
Now a retiree but fellow GPs if that isn’t an slap on the face with a cold fish or a poke in the eye with a burnt stick , what is?
This government intends to pay PAs (physician’s associates) who’ve done a 2 year post graduate course and do not have authority or training to actually prescribe for a patient MORE than they wish to pay a fully qualified doctor who’s just graduated after 5 years of medical school training.
Who would you trust?
All of this PCN routed funding is simply a way for HMG to control how the £s are spent, hooray we can buy a nurse, but if the money had in the global sum we’d have been able to recruit that nurse 5 yrs ago.
Wake up chaps, smell their ordure, look to the horizon.
Regards
Paul C
Regards
Paul C