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The British Medical Association (BMA) have rejected the government’s 4.5% pay uplift and opened discussions around next steps, including potential industrial or collective action.
The GP committee said the pay announcement was ‘derisory and divisive’ as it falls far below current levels of inflation, expected to reach 11% this year.
It also excludes anything for GP partners in England who are locked into a five-year contract deal agreed pre-pandemic and any extra funding to meet recommended pay awards for other staff.
This was despite the DDRB (Review Body for Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration) clearly urging the government to consider the impact of omitting those on multi-year deals from this year’s announcement, and stressing the “harm that may be caused to recruitment, retention and motivation by not acting”.
At a meeting of the BMA’s England GP committee (GPC England) this week (Thursday), members passed a resolution proposed by Dr Karthik Bhat and Dr Chandra Kanneganti that rejected the pay award and committed representatives to further discussions around next steps, including potential industrial or collective action.
GP practices struggling to provide safe care
The BMA said that for GPs who have spent the last two years pulling out all the stops to continue caring for their communities – often to the detriment of their own health and wellbeing – only to be left repeatedly unsupported and publicly admonished by the government and policymakers, this week’s announcement only sought to demoralise and devalue GPs further when they were already down.
Dr Richard Van Mellaerts, BMA England GP committee deputy chair, added: “To put it bluntly, the 4.5% ‘pay rise’ was nothing of the sort, amounting to the wages of hardworking staff being cut by more than 6% in real terms. Meanwhile, the government has wilfully ignored the pay body’s recommendation to give GPs who run practices any extra funding, meaning they have no means to meet even this small uplift for staff nor to pay for rocketing practice expenses. With inflation pressures set to reach 11%, something has to give, without understanding and support from Government, practices will fold and patients will have no access to the care that they need.
“With spiralling costs, record demand and workforce shortages across the board, we know practices across the country are already struggling to provide safe care, and the government has now actively chosen a path that compromises this further.
“Doctors across the profession, and colleagues across the NHS, find it unfathomable just how completely out of touch this government is with the experiences of those fighting an uphill battle on the ground, and the message is clear: enough is enough.”