Less than half of primary care networks (PCNs) have given their additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS) staff – such as nursing associates and advanced nurse practitioners – a pay rise of at least 5.5% since April this year, according to a new survey.
Of the 129 GPs with a PCN role who responded to the survey carried out by our sister title Pulse PCN, some 29% had granted a 6% uplift in pay for their ARRS staff.
An additional 16% said they had passed on a 5.5% increase, while 13% said they had given a pay rise but that this was below 5.5%.
Over a third (38%) said they had not given a pay rise yet and were awaiting guidance from NHS England on ARRS staff pay increases, and 3% said they do not plan to offer any pay increases this year.
NHS England confirmed in October that changes to the reimbursable amounts for ARRS staff were in line with the 5.5% Agenda for Change pay increases that were set out in July.
However, networks were told they needed to find the money for these uplifts within their existing 2024/25 budgets if they were to grant pay rises to staff.
Accountants last week warned that PCNs should keep reserves in light of the Budget which increased the rate of employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs).
At the time, Andy Pow, board member of the Association of Independent Specialist Medical Accountants (AISMA), said: ‘PCNs would be wise to be cautious with their ARRS spending and ensure they have some reserves in place in the event that the full cost increase of employing staff is not met by improved budgets in 2025/26.’
Also last week, Dr Laura Mount, clinical director at Central and West Warrington PCN, told Pulse PCN her network was due to announce their pay increases for the year but ‘based on the Budget we have had to pause this and revisit what we can give’.
On Monday, the Prime Minister said funding arrangements in relation to the impact of Budget changes on general practice would be set out ‘by the end of the year’.
Earlier this month, a Nursing in Practice survey revealed that half of general practice nursing staff in the UK are still without a pay rise for 2024/25.
Of those who had received an uplift this year, only around one in six (16%) were awarded the 6% recommended by the government in England.
Introduced in 2019, the ARRS can be used by PCNs to reimburse the salaries of some staff, including nursing associates, advanced nurse practitioners and more recently enhanced level practice nurses.
Earlier this year, NHS England confirmed the exclusion of general practice nurses from the ARRS scheme was set to be reviewed, while GPs were added.
ARRS pay findings in this article are based on a survey run with our sister titles Pulse PCN, Pulse and Management in Practice and was open between 19 September and 18 October 2024, collating responses using the SurveyMonkey tool. After removing duplicate entries from the same practice, a total of 702 GP partners and practice managers from England responded to these questions. For the PCN questions, we removed duplicate PCN responses and removed ‘don’t knows’. This left 129 responses. The survey was advertised to our readers via our website and email newsletter, with a prize draw for a £200 John Lewis voucher as an incentive to complete the survey. The survey was unweighted, and we do not claim this to be scientific – only a snapshot of the GP and practice manager population.
A version of this article was first published by our sister title Pulse PCN
