GPs earning over £163,000 must declare income by end of April

GPs earning over £163,000 must make a self-declaration by the end of this month, NHS England has reminded GPs in updated guidance.

NHS England made it a contractual requirement for the highest-earning GPs to declare their income in 2022, with the requirement covering partners, salaried and locum GPs.

The commissioner has now shared updated guidance on the pay transparency requirement, on which NHSE previously consulted the BMA’s GP Committee and the Association of Independent Specialist Medical Accountants (AISMA).

In the guidance, NHS England set out who is contractually required to make a ‘pay transparency self-declaration’ and explained the process of making the self-declaration and how the data collected will be used.

It states that the NHS earnings threshold above which a self-declaration must be made is £164,000 for 2023/24.

In an update to GPs last week, NHS England said: ‘The general practice pay transparency collection for 2023/24 is now live. Individuals who are required to self-declare their 2023/24 NHS earnings must do so by 30 April 2025.

‘The guidance sets out who is required to self-declare their NHS earnings, the definition of NHS earnings and how the self-declaration is made.’

The information that GPs earning above the threshold need to declared is:

• their NHS earnings for the relevant financial year
• the organisation(s) from which the NHS earnings were drawn.

NHS England also clarified that the pay transparency self-declaration needs to be made by individuals on the Forms Platform via the Strategic Data Collection Service (SDCS).

GPs with NHS earnings above the threshold for the relevant year will first need to register with the SDCS and then create an account to make their self-declaration on the Forms Platform. Individuals who have previously self-declared their NHS earnings will be able to use their existing login.

‘Data collected as part of the general practice pay transparency collection may be published by NHS England,’ the guidance added.

The BMA previously said that not declaring earnings above the threshold would put a practice, not the individual (unless a single-handed GP), in breach of their contract.

And one LMC advised that practices could wait to declare GP earnings until they received a breach-of-contract notice.

The pay transparency requirement was originally delayed due to the pandemic and then again in November and April 2022, when GPs faced the first and second deadlines to submit declarations.