Gloucestershire LMC

02/03/2026

Viewpoint: Why mandatory advice and guidance risks a patient safety fiasco

Plans to make advice and guidance a part of core general practice work from April as the current £80m DES is scrapped risks undermining GPs' role and patient safety, warns London GP Dr Tom Riddington.

Full story: https://www.gponline.com/viewpoint-why-mandatory-advice-guidance-risks-patient-safety-fiasco/article/1949842

02/03/2026

The ‘murky’ world of GP finance

This is an example of a 10,000 Patient practice

The average patient will have 7 GP practice appts/year, 1 A&E attendance every 3 years, 2 hospital appts/year

£169/patient/year goes GP
£3079 goes to hospitals

£40pa per patient would solve GP crisis, incidentally the amount cut in real terms over the past 10years

Wes Streeting Department of Health and Social Care - DHSC The Doctors' Association UK

27/02/2026

27/02/2026

DAUK notes today’s overwhelming vote by the GPCE to reject the Government’s imposed 2026/27 GP contract and to open an emergency referendum of the profession.

The referendum for BMA GP and GP registrar members will run from midday on Wednesday 4 March to 12pm on Wednesday 25 March.

It will ask whether members accept the contract, or want the Government to return to direct talks with the GPCE to develop a deal that ‘restores the viability of partnerships, provides fair remuneration for all GPs, and implements workload safeguards to keep GPs and patients safe’.

Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK GP co-lead, said: “The new imposed GP contract is extremely poor.

“It is no surprise that it has been rejected in principle by the BMA General Practice Committee.

“The real problem is for patients with loss of options for referral, very poor funding will reduce their ability to see GPs despite the headlines.

“The headline of £485m extra is only just over inflation and will not fix the problem for patients.

“The Health Secretary says he is ‘fixing the front door’ but patients need GPs not doors.

“It is vital that patients understand that this rejection is about protecting patient care.”

GPC England chair Dr Katie Bramall said: “GPs are in despair, uncertain how on Earth they can achieve the Government’s unrealistic expectations and fear this contract will drive away more experienced GPs increasing the risk of further practice closures.”

https://dauk.org/no-surprise-as-bma-rejects-poor-gp-contract/

26/02/2026

Nail on the head - letter to from Newcastle GP on the new GP contract

25/02/2026

The GP contract in England will be amended from 1 April to mandate GPs to ‘engage’ with ICB performance improvement measures.

Doctor’s Association UK GP co-lead Dr Steve Taylor said: ‘If it is used as a stick for practices, then that is a real problem, but if there’s a carrot, with a way of fixing it and the resources to help it happen, that could be amazing and probably something that we would have called for. If it came with money and incentives, that would be a good thing.’

the room for interpretation in the contractual changes would be ‘restrictive’ for GPs.

With regards to the specific example of patient on-the-day access, he added: ‘It’s hard to know how an ICB will define an urgent request. Given that practices will triage and assess requests and their urgency. This is too vague and sounds restrictive. Without clarity, it is open to interpretation and therefore confusion, both for patients and practice teams.’

‘The contract says GPs should be obviously prioritising urgents, which we have been doing for the last 30 years – so in that sense, it’s not, it’s not new.’

https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/2026-27-gp-contract/contract-mandates-gps-to-work-with-icbs-to-reduce-unwarranted-variation/

25/02/2026

Financial incentives for GPs to prescribe weight-loss drugs are ‘a smokescreen’ for a dire new general practice contract, DAUK’s Dr Steve Taylor has told national radio listeners.

Dr Taylor, DAUK’s GP co-lead, said tight NHS rules were preventing wider use of the drugs and not a reluctance by family doctors to prescribe them.

He was responding to media reports ahead of the publication of the new contract, that GP practices in England were to be paid an average of £3,000 a year in bonuses to prescribe Mounjaro.

Speaking to Tom Swarbrick on LBC, Dr Taylor said the incentive payments were a distraction from an ‘appalling’ deal for general practice.

He said: “I don’t need any incentive to prescribe Mounjaro.

“The problem is that the access to it is limited by the NHS.

“I can only prescribe it if you’re morbidly obese and you’ve got four clinical conditions.

“I thought why is this part of the GB contract? And then I read the GP contract a bit later on, and I realised this is just a smokescreen because, actually, the GP contract is appalling.”

The Government has announced £485 million in extra funding for general practice.

However, after adjusting for inflation, this is worth around £85 million, Dr Taylor said.

He told LBC listeners: “So we’re getting an extra £1.50 per patient for this next year.

“And then this was this news story was leaked out before the contract this afternoon, and I realised this is all politics.

“This is to make GPs look awful. That we are not prescribing Mounjaro to obese patients. Absolute rubbish,” he added.

Full story https://dauk.org/weight-loss-jab-incentives-smokescreen-for-appalling-gp-contract/

23/02/2026

Medical Director Dr Helen Garr joined Chairman of the National Association of Sessional GPs (NASGP) Dr Richard Fieldhouse for a candid conversation about the wellbeing of the health and care workforce. Listen here: www.nasgp.org.uk/resource/superhero-gp/