Dr Luke Evans, a GP who was announced as a shadow health minister yesterday, pressed the health secretary on the Budget impact in his first day in the role.
Dr Evans qualified as a doctor in 2007 and completed his GP training in 2013, after which he worked as a GP across the Midlands. His appointment follows that of Edward Argar, the MP for Melton and Syston and a former health minister, as shadow health secretary earlier this month.
In Parliament yesterday, Dr Evans drew attention to the impact recently announced National Insurance increases will have on practices, asking the health secretary to ‘explain how his choice to tax GPs will increase GP access’.
Dr Evans said: ‘We know from answers to written questions that have been submitted that GPs, hospices and care homes are not exempt from the increases, and will not find out until April what, if any, mitigation will be put in place, so cutbacks are now being planned.’
In response, health secretary Wes Streeting said he ‘can reassure’ providers such as GP practices that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) ‘will be setting out allocations long before April next year’.
He continued: ‘I recognise that people need to plan ahead of the new financial year. When deciding allocations, we take into account the range of pressures on different parts of the system.
‘People have heard what I have said already about the need to shift out of hospital into primary and community services.’
Dr Evans also pointed to what the BMA has called a ‘cruel anomaly’ – that GP practices are not entitled to small business relief because they are defined as ‘public’ bodies, yet are also denied reimbursement for NIC increases because they are defined as ‘private contractors’.
The new shadow health minister said: ‘One GP described the situation as “Schrödinger’s primary care”: GPs are seen as private contractors, so not exempt from the NI increases, but they are exempt from the small business relief because they are deemed to be “public”.
‘Did the Department of Health team knowingly go along with the Treasury team’s plan to tax primary care without mitigation, leading to cuts? Or did it not understand or spot the complexity of what is going on, so mitigations have to be put in place now? Which is it?’
The health secretary did not answer this question directly, saying that Conservative MPs ‘seem to welcome the £26 billion investment’ but ‘oppose the means of raising it’.
In response to other questions from MPs, Mr Streeting suggested that GP contract arrangements for 2025/26 would be revealed soon.
He said DHSC ‘will be announcing further budget allocations in the not-too-distant future to set out what further support’ will be provided for general practice’.
Mr Streeting also said: ‘I would say to GPs who are thinking about staffing for the next financial year that they should hold tight and wait for funding allocations shortly, so that they can make informed decisions about staffing and care for patients.’
Announcing his health minister appointment on social media yesterday, Dr Evans said: ‘Training and working as a junior doctor in the NHS and then as a GP, has shown me not only the very best of our health system, but also the ways in which we can improve and innovate for the future.’
BMA GP Committee England chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer congratulated Dr Evans on his appointment as shadow health minister, and thanked him for his ‘support these past few weeks’.
The Prime Minister recently responded to concerns about the impact of the Budget changes on GP practices, saying that ‘funding arrangements’ will be set out ‘by the end of the year’.
Pulse reported last week that increases to NICs and the National Living Wage next year could cost England’s GP practices £260m in total.
Featured image: Luke Evans ©House of Commons/Roger Harris
The Reeves budget should have put greater taxes on the profits of the largest companies and multinationals and Energy suppliers that have such huge profits, instead of increasing costs for GPs; is it not Profits that should be targeted for Tax?
also, greater taxes on things like the largest fuel-guzzling vehicles ( to help the Environment ) and on things like luxury items, gambling and spirits ( to help the Health of the nation ). There was an opportunity missed, in the Great Reeves budget, that will harm so many, from pensioners to farmers and our country’s Food Security: so important in these turbulent world times.
What will Sir Starmer and Reeves do to rectify these wrongs? We don’t need so much high carbon-footprint imported food and supply of things like wheat from countries like Ukraine will no longer be a given, moving forward, will they?
By the way, I hear that Rachel Reeves falsified her CV at some stage in the past, called herself an ‘Economist’ at Bank of Scotland or something, when in fact she was just one level above a front-desk teller: a touch of fraudulently ‘bigging up’ herself sounds like, which is why so many people find it so hard to believe any politician. Correct your errors, Sir K Starmer and R Reeves, to help our GPs and the public.
SM I agree. We need to know ASAP how much of the £22b is coming to hopefully rocket booster primary care. Leaving that announcement until the new year is plainly some dark political ruse which could backfire for Wes, Reeves and Starmer.