The BMA’s GP Committee for England has advised practices to give all salaried GPs the DDRB-recommended 6% pay uplift regardless of their contract wording.
In its latest update to GPs, the committee indicated that negotiations on government funding for this uplift are likely to finish by the end of September, with ‘payments made to practices promptly thereafter’.
The Government announced in July that it had accepted the DDRB’s recommendation meaning that NHS staff in England, including salaried GPs and trainees but not partners, will get a 6% pay increase this year.
It then confirmed that practices will get a funding uplift to cover this, which is backdated to April.
At the time, the GPC was seeking confirmation from the Government that the funding would be ‘recurrent’.
As part of the final year of the 2019 five-year contract, GP practices have already received a 2.1% global sum uplift this year, and the GPC has said that any ‘additional staff salary cost pressures are currently unfunded’.
Negotiations with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England for a ‘supplementary uplift to Global Sum’ will ‘provide a partial funding solution to increased salary costs’, according to the committee’s latest update.
The GPC highlighted that some salaried GP contracts may not contain an explicit reference to DDRB recommendations, but said the BMA stance is for these colleagues to receive the uplift nonetheless.
The update said: ‘Both committees’ executive officers recognise that for salaried GP colleagues whose contractual terms include a yearly salary uplift linked to annual DDRB pay awards should receive that uplift each year.
‘Salaried GPs employed on the BMA model contract should have such a clause, and an uplift date in terms of when this is applied, although the default would be 1 April.
‘There are other salaried GP colleagues whose contract may not specifically reference the DDRB award in terms of a salary uplift, but the BMA believes all salaried colleagues should receive a 6% salary uplift unless another uplift is specifically referenced within their contracts.’
The committee also emphasised that the BMA ‘values’ both GP partners and salaried GPs, and recognises that the 6% pay uplift ‘has the potential to create challenges’ between these two groups.
Last month, the BMA advised partners to notify their staff that they have not yet received money to fund the promised pay rise given that negotiations were still ongoing.
And in July, the Royal College of Nursing urged GP nurses to push practices to ensure they get the 6% pay uplift.
The uplift excludes ARRS staff, who are included in the 5% consolidated increase in pay offered by the Government for Agenda for Change staff in May.
However, NHS England confirmed in June that no overall change to the total funding will be available.
A version of this story first appeared on our sister publication Pulse.
