GPs are independent contractors who are contracted to provide NHS services.
On 1st August 2024, General Practice in England entered a period of GP collective action. More than 8,500 GPs in England took part in a ballot run by the British Medical Association (BMA); 98.3% voted in favour of taking part in collective action.
During collective action, GPs will still be working and will still be providing the NHS services that they are contracted to provide. GP practices will make individual and practice-based decisions with regards whether they will take any actions. There is no specific end date for collective action currently and GP practices may vary which actions they choose to take over time.
Taking collective action is not about penalising patients, and it is not a decision any GP practice has taken lightly. The actions are designed to stand against the lack of adequate funding in general practice.
Collective action is not the same as industrial action but means that some GPs may stop or reduce certain work. Historically, practices have “over worked”: that is, they have worked above and beyond their contracts to keep up with patient demand. Collective action will see this “over work” reduce or stop.
Some GP practices will start declining to carry out work that we are not contracted to do, even when in the past we have done it on the grounds that it may be more convenient for patients.
Leeds City Medical Practice is in support of the collective action to improve the services into primary care; however, we will not be taking all of the actions.
An example of one action we will taking: we have occasions where, presumably to alleviate cost and workload pressures, hospitals are not accepting GP referrals, but instead return this to us with advice and guidance; we will no longer accept such advice and guidance as a response to our referral.
An example of one action we will not be taking: we will not, at this time, limit patient contacts per clinician per day to 25 – this is not possible. This would not work with the successful way our clinicians currently triage to ensure that patients with more urgent needs are prioritised.
Patient safety underpins everything we do, and we ask that our patients continue to come forward as usual for their care during collective action as we continue to provide the high level of care patients deserve.
We hope this action will bring meaningful changes, which benefit our patients and the wider healthcare system.
