GPs to vote on industrial action over new contracts as patient wait times skyrocket

The ballot closes on June 29

Thousands GPs are voting whether to start “work to rule” industrial action over a new pay contract that is blamed for hundreds of surgeries closing.

The British Medical Association opened its ballot of partners in England yesterday over the move that would involve them limiting the number of patients they see. While the result will not allow practice owners to initiate strikes, GPs could reduce appointments to the recognised safe working maximum level of 25 from August.

The exodus of family doctors has left those that remain each seeing an average of 37 patients a day, amid record waits for appointments. The ballot will close on June 29. Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of BMA’s General Practitioners Committee in England, said: “Despite numerous warnings and their refusal to improve the contract, we’ve been left with no choice but to take action to save general practice. I urge all GP partner and contractor members to vote ‘Yes’ and show the next government that GPs can no longer tolerate running practices with less and less funding as demand continues to spiral.”

A work-to-rule type action could mean GPs stopping tasks they are not formally contracted to do, but due to pressures elsewhere in the NHS, have been passed on to them. They could refuse to do fit notes, prescriptions or investigations that should have taken place in hospital, or ask NHS trusts to communicate directly with patients about re-booking hospital appointments.

The action could add to huge pressure throughout the NHS after a 14-year funding squeeze under the Tories. The BMA said the new GP service contract, which includes practices being given a 1.9% funding increase for 2024/25, means many surgeries will struggle to stay financially viable. GPs launched a formal dispute over the issue in April after a referendum carried out by the union found that 99% of 19,000 GPs rejected the new deal.

Dr Bramall-Stainer added: “We want to provide patients with a quality service but it’s increasingly clear, and our patients can see for themselves, we simply cannot do that without sufficient investment and more GPs in our surgeries.”

The vote follows the biggest period of industrial unrest in NHS history which has seen doctors, mainly those in hospitals, repeatedly go on strike. A new report by the Health Foundation shows patients are finding it harder to see their chosen family doctor. Analysis of the GP Patient Survey shows 35% of patients with a preferred GP said they saw them “always or almost always” or “a lot of the time” in 2023, compared with 50% in 2018.