GPs are set to vote on whether to return to negotiations as the BMA’s GPC England committee today rejected the Government’s latest proposed contract changes.
GPC members on Thursday overwhelmingly opposed changes to the GMS and PMS GP practice contracts for 2026-27 put forward earlier this week by the Department of Health.
The proposed changes include requiring GPs to ensure unlimited same-day access to patients with clinically urgent needs, and forbidding practices from capping the number of consultation requests they respond to, even when working at full capacity.
GPC is now calling for the Government to engage in direct negotiations with a view to finding a way forward on a contract that will adequately address the systemic challenges that have left general practice in England ‘facing extinction’.
The committee has confirmed that its next step will be to poll all GPs and GP registrars in England on whether to accept or reject the proposed contract changes, in a vote that will take place from 4 March to 25 March.
Speaking today, GPC England committee chair Katie Bramall said that while GPs gave everything for their patients and their profession, it was simply impossible to expect them to meet the utterly unrealistic expectations set out in the Government’s proposals.
She said: ‘GPs are hardworking, dedicated professionals, but we are not magicians. We can’t bend the rules of physics and provide unlimited same-day urgent care as well as unlimited planned and routine care, all whilst hospital trusts are enabled to reject our referrals so that we are trying to manage the impossible and unsafe.
‘General practice is critically endangered, facing extinction: patient list sizes compared with GP numbers are still dangerously high; continuity of patient care is rapidly declining; and we have lost over 6,000 (around 28 per cent) of the GP partners who actually run practices since 2015.’
She added: ‘Government must work with us to bring general practice back from the brink of extinction; this contract will not do that. No more empty words. No more broken promises - it’s time for action.
‘Unless we see the Government return to the negotiating table and enter into serious one-to-one negotiations over a new contract with GPCE - as promised repeatedly by secretary of state Wes Streeting - to restore the viability of partnerships and practices, deliver safe working practices for patients and fair remuneration for all GPs, the profession will be left with no alternative but to escalate to action to protect ourselves and our patients.’
With the proposed changes to the contract set to be imposed by the Government from 1 April, GPs and GP registrars will receive more information on voting in the upcoming referendum in due course.