The British Medical Association’s GP Committee is ‘pushing’ for extra funding from the government to cover the costs of increased National Insurance contributions for practices, following changes announced in the Autumn Budget this week.
After speaking with primary care minister Stephen Kinnock on Wednesday, GPC England chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer said the government ‘knows there must be full recompense’ for the extra costs.
Health ministers are currently ‘locked in discussions with Treasury’ over this issue, according to Dr Bramall-Stainer.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed to our sister title Pulse that further detail on National Insurance contributions for GPs will be confirmed in due course, and that it will work closely with the Treasury to ensure appropriate compensation for the public sector.
It comes after chancellor Rachel Reeves announced this week that the rate of employer National Insurance will increase by 1.2 percentage points – to 15% – from 6 April next year, and experts warned that GP practices will be one of the few areas of the NHS worse off as a result.
The Treasury confirmed that it has set aside funding to protect the spending power of the public sector – including the NHS – from the direct impacts of the employer NICs changes, and Budget documents stated that there will be ‘allowance for impact on public sector organisations’, which in 2025/26 amounts to over £4.7bn.
However, the Treasury has not yet confirmed whether this will include GP practices.
GP leaders in Nottinghamshire said they understood the GPCE is ‘pushing’ for extra NICs costs to be ‘covered’ by the Treasury so they do ‘not become an increase to overheads which would make many unviable’.
In a post on X on Thursday, GPC chair Dr Bramall-Stainer said that she ‘spent time on the phone’ to Mr Kinnock yesterday afternoon and that BMA Council chair Phil Banfield ‘did the same’ with health secretary Wes Streeting.
She argued that NHS GP practices do ‘count as public sector’, citing the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which defines them as ‘public sector authorities’.
She also said the Budget documents seem to suggest that NHS GP organisations will be included as part of the Treasury’s ‘allowance’, but that GPs ‘need clarity and certainty’ as soon as possible, rather than ‘promises or conjecture’.
