GP partners and principals saw a 17% real-terms drop in income in one year, new official data has shown.
NHS data on GP earnings for 2022/23, published last week, showed that the average contractor income stood at £140,200.
In cash terms, this is a drop of £13,200 (8.6%) on the previous year, but when adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index (CPI), the difference went up to £28,500, which is a 16.9% decrease.
The BMA highlighted the two-year lag in the publication of GP earnings data, which means ‘there will be practices facing even more bleak positions’ at the moment.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also saw real-terms cuts to contractor income, with Northern Irish GP partners experiencing a drop of over 14%.
The average income before tax for salaried GPs in England went up by £1,200 to £69,200 between 2021/22 and 2022/23, which equates to a 1.8% increase.
But when adjusted for inflation, salaried GPs saw a drop in income of 7.5% in 2022/23.
NHS Digital said that the Covid-19 pandemic is ‘likely to have impacted on earnings and expenses’ since GP practices were delivering vaccinations.
BMA GP Committee England chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer said the NHS official figures show that practices are ‘seriously struggling to stay afloat given the significantly increasing costs of running practice’.
She said: ‘With practices no longer receiving as much of the extra funding for Covid vaccination work, these figures show much more clearly what it costs to keep a practice open – and that many partners reduce their own annual income to cover practice expenses.
‘In 2022/23, practice expenses made up 72.7% of earnings on average, compared to 60% in 2008/09. When adjusting for inflation, this means that average partner income has dropped by 18% since 2021/22.’
Dr Bramall-Stainer said that if practices do not ‘get the recurrent funding they require’, they ‘will be forced to consider’ closing, and this is why they are currently taking collective action.
BMA sessional GP Committee chair Dr Mark Steggles said that for salaried GPs, an ‘increase of 2%’ to average pay ‘still represents a trend of pay erosion’.
He added: ‘Salaried GPs are working harder than ever to provide care to their patients, but seeing their pay reduce in real-terms.
‘If we are to retain and recruit the GPs so desperately needed in the NHS, then there must be urgent action from the Government to address this pay erosion, as well as underfunding across the system.’
Devolved nation figures
Scotland average contractor income 2022/23 – £120,000
- 0.4% increase in cash terms
- 8.7% decrease in real terms
Northern Ireland average contractor income 2022/23 – £108,300
- 5.9% decrease in cash terms
- 14.4% decrease in real terms
Wales average contractor income 2022/23 – £115,300
- 0.6% decrease in cash terms
- 9.6% decrease in real terms
Source: NHS Digital
The Government has confirmed a 7.4% uplift to the global sum in 2024/25 to fund GP and practice staff pay rises worth 6%.
In July, the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) made a recommendation for the 6% pay rise, which included GP partner pay for the first time in five years.
At the start of the year, the BMA suggested that GP contractor income had dropped by a fifth in the past year, based on findings from a survey of practices.
A version of this story first appeared on our sister title Pulse.
