GPs to obtain £889m in bid to slash pink tape and produce again conventional household medical doctors

GPs will receive hundreds of millions of pounds extra and have performance targets slashed under plans to bring back the traditional family doctor.

Practices will be rewarded if they ensure patients regularly see the same medic, rather than allocating appointments ‘like a taxi rank’.

Those who identify patients with high blood pressure and prevent the ‘most common killers’, such as heart disease and strokes, will also cash-in under the terms of a new contract.

Meanwhile, GPs’ admin burden will be reduced, and their list of targets cut from 76 to 44, to free-up more time for treating patients.

Writing in today’s Mail, Health Secretary Wes Streeting describes the proposals as a ‘huge step to achieving the reform GPs and patients have been calling for’. He urges doctors to back the contract and to end industrial action.

The British Medical Association, the doctors’ union, said it will examine the details before a formal consultation in the New Year but is hopeful the funding will be a ‘positive starting point’.

Mr Streeting yesterday pledged an extra £889million for GP surgeries in England, starting from April next year. 

GPs will receive £889million in extra funding and have performance targets slashed to bring back the traditional family doctor (file photo)

Wes Streeting described the proposals as a ‘huge step to achieving the reform GPs and patients have been calling for’

This represents a 7.2 per cent rise in cash terms and around 4.8 per cent in real terms – above the expected 3 per cent rise for the wider NHS. It is on top of the £100million for building upgrades.

Mr Streeting said: ‘The system is broken, which is why we are slashing red tape, binning outdated performance targets, and instead freeing doctors up to do their jobs.’ A survey earlier this year by the Liberal Democrats found only half of patients always or sometimes saw the same GP each time.

Tory former health secretary Jeremy Hunt in 2022 compared GP services to taxi ranks, urging: ‘It is fundamentally safer to make a diagnosis if you know a patient’s context.’

The plan is to ensure patients with complex needs, such as the elderly and those with long-term conditions, can regularly see the same GP, while those with simpler, one-off issues can be seen quickly by whoever is available.