GP partners and salaried GPs are to receive a 3.5% pay rise for 2026/27, it has been announced – with the uplift expected to be passed on to practice staff in England and Wales.
The Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) recommended the 3.5% pay increase for GPs from April 1 in its report published yesterday. It applies to all four UK nations.
Health secretary Wes Streeting said he has formally accepted the headline pay recommendation and that this would lead to ‘a 3.5% increase to the pay elements of the GP contract for GPs and other general practice staff’ in England.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has confirmed this means salaried general practice staff, including nurses), would also be entitled to a 3.5% pay award. Although it stressed that as independent contractors to the NHS, it is for GP partners to determine uplifts in pay for themselves and their employees.
Jeremy Miles, Welsh health and social secretary said he too accepted the pay recommendation and that ‘while falling outside the scope of DDRB recommendations’ he ‘remained committed to ensuring a fair and proportionate uplift across the whole of primary care, including… all staff working in general practice’.
The 3.5 % figure is just slightly higher than the 3.3% increase for NHS staff on Agenda for Change, which was announced last month.
It is also more than the assumed 2.5% uplift the Government in England had made as part of the GP contract deal for 2026/27, which has promised an extra £485m.
The DDRB report said: ‘Despite the very many pressures on NHS budgets, and the tight affordability constraints that have been set out to us, it is crucial that doctors and dentists remain appropriately rewarded for their high levels of expertise and the very significant demands placed on
them.’
Although it said the DHSC has developed financial and delivery plans which allow for a pay uplift of 2.5% and ‘that accepting an award above this would inevitably have an impact on healthcare delivery’, Mr Streeting’s written statement to Parliament, made yesterday, said the DDRB increases will ‘not be paid for by cutting frontline services.’
He said efficiency and productivity targets set for ICBs and other providers to deliver breakeven positions are ‘the foundations of the Government’s ability to afford the rises and that business planning across DHSC and its Arm’s Length Bodies will take the ‘DDRB recommendations into account’.
He went to say: ‘ I hugely appreciate the incredible work of talented staff across our NHS’, adding that, ‘I am pleased to be announcing the pay awards earlier than the previous year, which means that doctors and dentists will see pay in their pay packets closer to April. We will continue work across Government to keep bringing forward the pay round for all public sector staff.’
Meanwhile, the Welsh Government said that ‘the application of the recommended pay uplifts’ will be a decision for the next Government.
The BMA said the 3.5% pay award will be a ‘crushing blow’ to doctors in England as it represented another real terms pay cut.
BMA council chair Dr Tom Dolphin said: ‘It will dash any hope that the Government might be prepared to properly recognise the expertise and contribution of doctors to the health of the nation, and it shows that the promised reforms to the DDRB have not resulted in it showing its independence from government in any way. Both the recommendation and award fail to meet the rising cost of living, let alone make any progress in restoring pay that doctors have lost over the last 17 years’.
