Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to provide additional financial support to GP practices with increased costs to ensure they can maintain (a) staffing levels and (b) high-quality service provision.

We are investing an additional £889 million in the general practice contract to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.2 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade. We are pleased that the England general practitioner committee of the British Medical Association is supportive of the contract changes.

The Government committed to recruiting over 1,000 recently qualified general practitioners (GPs) through an £82 million boost to the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) over 2024/25, as part of an initiative to address GP unemployment and secure the future pipeline of GPs.

The 2025/26 GP contract will make ARRS more flexible to better address local workforce needs. The two ARRS pots will be combined into a single pot for reimbursement of patient facing staff costs, with no restrictions on the number or type of staff covered, including GPs and practice nurses.

To boost GP recruitment and bring back the family doctor, the maximum reimbursement for GPs salaries will rise from £73,113 in 2024/25 to £82,418, reflecting the lower quartile of the salaried GP pay range. This increase includes proportional employer on-costs within the total reimbursement amount primary care networks can claim.

The changes to the contract will improve services for patients and make progress towards the Government’s health mission, supporting the three key shifts the Government wants to achieve, namely from analogue to digital, sickness to prevention, and from hospital to community care.