Labour must raise GP funding to end ‘8am scramble’, says doctors’ group | GPs

Labour’s promise to “end the 8am scramble” for medical appointments will be impossible without increasing core funding for GPs, according to a leading medical association.

The health secretary, Wes Streeting, pledged during the general election campaign that Labour would “end the 8am scramble by allowing patients to easily book appointments to see the doctor they want, in the manner they choose”.

But the Doctors’ Association UK said more funding is needed with the organisation’s GP lead, Dr Lizzie Toberty, saying at least another £35 for each patient a year is required to match funding levels from a decade ago.

“We receive [the same] payment per patient, per year, no matter how complex, no matter what they need doing, no matter how many appointments they have,” Toberty told the i newspaper.

“[The] payment has not been uplifted in line with inflation or patient need, so over the years primary care has had to do more and more with less and less, which can be seen in the difficulties people have in getting to see their GP and in terms of patient satisfaction,” she added.

The NHS paid an average of £164.64 for each registered patient in 2022-23, according to recent data. Despite the high demand at GP surgeries, less than 10% of the £165bn NHS budget in England is spent on primary care. As of April, there are 2,294 patients per GP, a 7.2% increase since 2019.

In a 22% increase from the year before, 60,905,102 appointments took place more than two weeks after being requested between January and December last year – more than three times the 6% rise in total appointments.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told the PA news agency that the government has “committed to recruiting over 1,000 newly qualified GPs through an £82m boost to the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme” in hopes of easing the workload facing the 27,670 full-time fully qualified GPs working in England as of June.

“This government is also accepting the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration’s pay recommendation of a 6% uplift to pay and is consulting on the implementation,” the department spokesperson said.

In a letter to the representative body for GPs in England, the government said it will fund this 6% uplift with a 7.4% increase to the global sum for 2024-25. Toberty argued that this would not be enough fund the pay rise.

“It’s a step in the right direction but again shows a misunderstanding of what actually happens in general practice and the intricacies of the funding model,” she said. “Essentially, we need a new, less convoluted contract.”

Earlier this month, family doctors voted overwhelmingly in favour of staging industrial action for the first time in 60 years, to protest against a new contract in which the last government agreed to a 1.9% funding increase for 2024-25 seen as financially unviable by the British Medical Association.