Helen Salisbury: Another imposed GP contract

Traditionally, the annual changes to the GP contract have been the product of negotiations between the government and the BMA’s GP Committee for England. However, for four of the past five years no agreement has been reached, and the contract has been unilaterally imposed by the government.An agreed contract led to a glimmer of hope last year, but disappointment followed as the promised safeguards around online access failed to materialise. This year the government withdrew from negotiations altogether: instead, it consulted with a wider range of stakeholders over a six week period and held only a single meeting with GP representatives at the BMA.1The resulting imposed contract has some positive features.2 One of the most pressing problems in general practice is ongoing GP unemployment: despite patients and practices needing more GPs, some fully qualified GPs can’t get jobs. This year’s contract tackles this problem in two ways. Firstly, there’s a…