Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of funding for the 2025-26 general practice contract in England will be allocated to the general practice nursing workforce.

We hugely value the critical role that general practice (GP) nurses play and are determined to address the issues they face by shifting the focus of the National Health Service beyond hospitals and into the community.

GPs are independent businesses, providing GP services to their local populations under an NHS contract. Practices have autonomy in deciding how to provide services, including their workforce mix, in order to deliver their contracts.

We are investing an additional £889 million through the GP Contract to reinforce the front door of the NHS, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.2 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade.

The investment includes funding for an assumed increase in GP staff salaries of 2.8% in 2025/26. Once the Department has received the recommendations for GPs for 2025/26 from the independent Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Renumeration, it will be considered in the usual way.

As self-employed contractors to the NHS, it is for practices to determine uplifts in pay for their employees within the agreed GP Contract funding envelope.

The contract changes for 2025/26 also include increased flexibilities for the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, to allow primary care networks to better respond to local workforce needs. Practice nurses have also been added to the scheme, with no restrictions on the numbers or type of staff able to be funded through the scheme.