GPC negotiators will not accept another multi-year contract deal, says chair

The BMA’s GP Committee England will not accept another multi-year contract deal with the Government ‘anytime now’, its chair has said.

Speaking at an online roadshow yesterday evening, Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer said that the five-year pay deal – which provided a 2% year-on-year funding rise from 2019-2024 – had contributed to pay erosion for partners and salaried GPs.

As a result, she said, GPC England negotiators would turn down any attempts by the next government to negotiate long-term pay deals.

She also countered claims that the BMA’s plans for industrial action would not be enough to bring about change, saying that if enough practices took part it would bring the NHS ‘to a standstill’.

The roadshow was set up to explain how practices can take part in ‘collective action’ expected  to commence on 1 August, depending on the result of a ballot which will close on Monday 29 July.

Dr Bramall-Stainer said that the call to collective action ‘hasn’t suddenly happened’ but that GPs ‘have been slowly boiled for over a decade’.

She said: ‘This is not just about you as partners, you’ve got salaried GPs out there who have also had pay erosion over many years because we’ve been locked into a zero sum game in the GMS contract.

‘We’re fighting and scrambling for scraps amongst an ever-decreasing amount that goes into practices.’

She added: ‘We’re not going to accept a multi-year deal anytime now, I’ll tell you that as well.

‘You are the cavalry that we’re going to be depending on, because a future in this primary care is not GP-led.

‘It is multi-episodic, fragmented, devolved – in a centre where you’ve got one GP supervising a whole team of multidisciplinary colleagues.’

She also addressed concerns that the options proposed by the BMA for GP collective action might not seem enough to make a real difference.

She said: ‘There are so many of us delivering so much that some of you might think the actions that we’re asking you to take probably don’t seem enough.

‘I’ll tell you now, if they are taken by the majority of practices, in the majority of options on the majority of the time, they will be enough – they will bring the NHS to a standstill.’

As revealed by Pulse, the examples include refusing to engage in advice and guidance and seeing patients ‘face to face as a default’.

The GPC said it is up to practices to choose which actions to take from a menu of actions proposed by the union.

As apart of collective action, the GPC will be ‘inviting GP partners to work with their practice management team’ and, working in liaison with their LMC, ‘determine the actions they will be willing to take’.

Dr Bramall-Stainer added: ‘We’re GPs, we’re patient-centred, we don’t like conflict and confrontation, we don’t want to do industrial action.

‘That’s why we’re asking you to protect your practice and protect your patients. But make no mistake, this is premeditated, disruptive, collective action.

‘This is industrial action we’ll be asking you to take. But of paramount importance, you will not risk breach notices by following our advice.

‘And if you do follow this advice, you will be protecting your patients, and you will instead be burning holes in NHS England spreadsheets.’

The committee indicated that this will be a ‘first phase’ of action, and that ‘further escalation’ beyond a non-statutory ballot can be stopped if the Government agrees to make ‘contractual improvements’ in 2024/25 and restore GP funding to 2018/19 levels.

But ‘phase two’ could involve ‘escalation’ to contract breach actions, ‘action short of strike’ and ‘strike action’, which may include salaried GPs, registrar GPs and or other practice staff.

The GPC’s asks of Government will be summarised in a ‘vision document’ being launched at a roadshow at BMA House on Thursday 18 July.

It follows a referendum by the GPCE which found that 99% of GPs did not agree with the recent contract imposition, as well as the committee officially declaring a ‘dispute’ with NHS England.