GP Pay "Cut" Since 2005-06 Levels

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 01 Nov 2007 - 2:00 PDT

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GP earnings figures published recently are already out of date. They pre-date the current two-year period in which there has been a 0% increase in basic practice resources. In effect, says the BMA, this means a pay cut for the GPs running practices as they have had to meet the rising costs of providing NHS general practice - including staff pay and premises - on a standstill budget.

Dr Laurence Buckman, Chairman of the BMA's GPs Committee said: "We know from a UK-wide GP survey that three quarters of GP principals expect income to go down this year (2007-08). This is supported by estimates from accountants. There is a limit to the efficiencies you can make and the inflation effects you can absorb on a zero pay award: 0% for GPs in 2007-08 could actually equate to a 6% cut in income in real terms. Family doctors are now being penalised for rising to the challenge of performance-related-pay for delivering the quality care the government asked for."

The figures released today are calculated from income tax returns and include all GP income. This includes private work earned outside the NHS from things like insurance medicals, as well as earnings outside the GP contract such as the out-of-hours shifts that thousands of GPs still work. Since 2005 there has also been a significant increase in the number of salaried GPs. Salaried GPs usually earn substantially less than colleagues who organise and run practices as well as doing clinical work. Dr Buckman said: "The headline figures published today do not include salaried GP earnings and therefore don't reflect the overall average NHS GP income which is considerably lower than £100,000."

Increase in funding for quality work

When the Government negotiated the new GP contract it built in an income rise for practices in the final year (2005-06) of the three year deal by raising the average value of the performance-related-pay quality points from £75 to £124.60. Dr Buckman said: "This was a planned increase in resources dependent on practices continuing to deliver increasingly good patient care."

Dispensing Doctors

Some doctors, especially in rural areas, also take on the work of dispensing medicines to their patients, earning these dispensing doctors an additional income. Dr Buckman said: "It is misleading to lump these doctors in with ordinary GPs when reporting an average income. They earn more than non-dispensing GPs who form the majority because they are effectively running two businesses."

For non-dispensing self-employed GPs working under the new national contract, the average net income in 2005-06 from all sources was £102,648. Figures are not yet available for the amount of this earned solely from the new GP contract.

"Most of the increase in GP pay in recent years has come from the extra resources that GPs earn if they offer higher quality patient care. The outcome from this raised quality is a better standard of health for our patients" said Dr Buckman.

http://www.bma.org.uk