Scottish GP leaders back industrial action ballot

Scottish GP leaders have voted in favour of balloting the profession on industrial action.

At their annual conference in Clydebank today, LMC representatives said they are ‘dismayed’ to watch general practice ‘decline due to the incompetence of Scottish Government’ and voted in favour of a motion calling on the BMA to ballot GPs on ‘industrial action options’.

They said that this is the result of ‘years of disinvestment in general practice’ with financial cuts opposed to uplifts to GP partners pay.

It comes as today the union’s Scottish GP committee unveiled the results of a pay survey completed by more than 1,100 GPs across Scotland, which revealed the impact of this year’s contract uplift for GPs:

• 86% say it has hit their morale, with more than half of GPs (53%) saying it has ‘significantly decreased their morale’.
• 90% say they are ‘not satisfied it recognises their contribution to the NHS’
• Nearly two-thirds (65%) say they are ‘more likely to leave the NHS as a result’
• 65% are ‘prepared to cause significant service disruption’ through industrial action.

Proposing the motion, Dr Samantha Fenwick from Grampian LMC said: ‘Over the last 15 years, we have seen a real term loss of earnings relative to inflation, a 25% pay erosion since 2008.

‘In order to survive, practices are handing back contracts, or they’re having to reduce the amount of patients they see by making redundancies.

‘Scottish Government’s words have no meaning. Look instead at their actions. Let’s show the Government our strength of feeling for industrial action to secure the sustainability of the independent contractor.’

Glasgow LMC’s Dr Scott Queen said: ‘There’s no productivity concerns in general practice in comparison to other parts of the NHS, yet how this has been rewarded over several years has been insufficient.

‘I think the mood is grim amongst colleagues, and there’s an expectation of action to protect patients colleagues, trainees and aspiring GPs of the future, and I think that has to happen sooner rather than later.’

Scotland GPC chair Dr Iain Morrison said that practices are ‘absolutely candescent with rage’ and ‘ready to act now’.

He said: ‘We need to be in direct communication with our populations to explain why we’d be taking on this very difficult action. And it is about funding, restoration and saving the profession. It’s not about GP personal terms and conditions.’

Addressing the conference in an opening speech earlier this morning, Dr Morrison told representatives that ‘it is right’ to be ‘angry just now’.

‘Let us use that energy to make the case for a positive shift toward funding restoration and securing the future of our profession,’ he added.

He pointed out that more than 60% of GPs are now prepared to take industrial action, according to their pay survey.

He said: ‘For this to come from one of the most altruistic vocations, shows that Government must work with us at pace to recover the dire situation.

‘Otherwise, we will be left with no other choice than to move in this direction, as a last resort to save general practice as we know it.’

Dr Morrison added that one mechanism that ‘would help to avoid dispute’ could be the direct reimbursement of non-staff expenses.

He added: ‘Future potential cost pressures must be acted upon now – none of us can be expected to simply wait and hope for the best.

‘It isn’t prudent and would just mean communities across Scotland losing more practices. Employment freezes and even redundancies, as hard as this is, will have to be considered if practices are to survive.’

In his speech at the conference this afternoon, Scottish health secretary Neil Gray announced that an additional £13.6 million will be invested in general practice this financial year.

Today, the Scottish Government also unveiled a new recruitment and retention strategy for GPs, setting out 20 measures to improve retention.

These include:

• Improvements to the Performers List to ensure ‘effective’ registration of GPs across health boards and ‘accurate’ flow through into national databases
• Targeting GP recruitment marketing activity to attract UK and international GPs to work in Scotland
• Support ‘longer-term sustainability’ of the independent contractor model and provide ‘a new, specific training offer for GPs on the role of a GP partner’
•  Explore ‘innovative; opportunities for later career GPs to remain in clinical service and in roles that provide training and mentoring 

Mr Gray told the conference that the ‘immediate’ funding for 2024-25 will address ‘known financial pressures’.

He said: ‘I recognise the significant financial and workload challenges facing both the NHS as a whole and general practice, especially during this period of high demand, and understand the significant strain this places on GPs.

‘My focus remains firmly on finding ways to recruit more GPs, even within the constraints of the current financial climate, and that is why I am allocating an additional £13.6 million for general practice this financial year to support staff costs.

‘This additional funding will help GPs to underpin business decisions and provide high-quality patient care.’

Pulse has contacted the Scottish Government for comment on the industrial action motion.

Last month, GPs in Scotland received confirmation that the total uplift to core global sum funding will be 7.5%, backdated to April 2024 to cover the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) recommendation of a 6% pay increase.

But GPC Scotland warned that the uplift ‘well short’ and said that whether it covers the DDRB recommendation or not will ‘depend on each practice’s individual business model’ and the costs they have faced in the last year.

And an exclusive survey, carried out by Pulse and our sister title Management in Practice, indicated that partners are forgoing their own pay rises this year in order to pass on increases to their staff, with over 40% of GP partner respondents from the devolved nations, including Scotland, responding they ‘didn’t know’ if they could afford it.