Dr Steve Taylor, GP co-lead at the Doctors Association UK (DAUK), was contributing to a report in GP Online that a £55m ARRS funding uplift does not cover rising costs or provide extra funding to hire experienced GPs.

He said: “There’s not enough funding within the funding envelope to employ more GPs without making somebody else redundant.”

Dr Taylor added: “Now the rules have shifted so on paper you have more freedom, but you’ve already spent the money on staff that were in scope in the previous year. So what do you do now?”

However, Dr Taylor said the numbers of GPs recruited through ARRS would continue to rise.

This was because increasing amounts of the budgets of Primary Care Networks were being moved from ARRS into GP roles.

Read the article in full.

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ARRS money

We have called for ARRS restrictions to be lifted, arguing the scheme fails to meet the needs of practices, and of under and unemployed GPs. Dr Taylor has again made the case for ARRS funding to go into core general practice funding in an interview with GP Online. “(It) would be a huge step forward to enabling practices to improve access for patients,’ he said. Dr Taylor also spoke about GPs being ‘concerned and unhappy’ with the 10-year health plan and warned the Government was ‘risking patient care’ by ignoring the concerns of GPs.

General practice

Read Dr Taylor’s interview with GP Online. In a separate article on GP Online, Dr Taylor discussed the wide variation in GP partner income across England. He said a factor ‘could be differences in opportunities for practices to earn additional income’. Read the GP Online article on GP income variation across England. Please support our work by joining DAUK or donating to our GoFundMe.

Media statement

Our statement with the Medical Women’s Federation (MWF) on comments by Dr J Meiron Thomas was referenced in Pulse. Jaimie Kaffash, Pulse editor-in-chief, said it ‘highlighted the real reasons behind problems with access, and the structural issues faced by women in medicine’. Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK GP spokesperson, also spoke to Pulse for a report on NHS England failing to update physician associate job descriptions in line with Leng review recommendations. He said: “NHS England has created this problem with promotion of PAs in general practice, specifically seeing undifferentiated patients as part of their stipulation in ARRS. “The Leng review clearly backed both RCGP and BMA positions on the use of PAs in general practice. It was and remains unsafe for PAs to see undifferentiated patients with limited supervision.”

Physician associates

He added: “The fact that NHS England has not backed their previous released statement to GPs by doing the same thing, shows how much a mess NHS England is making over this. It leaves GPs in a difficult position medico-legally.” Speaking to GP Online about the issue of physician associate job descriptions, Dr Taylor described it as ‘a mess’. He said it left GP practices ‘in a very difficult position medico-legally’ – and expressed sympathy for PAs themselves, who he said had been ‘sold a role which was not suitable for them by NHS leaders’. GP Online exclusively reported that more than half of the £82m for additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS) GP jobs in 2024/25 went unclaimed. Dr Taylor said the scheme should be expanded to include all GPs rather than only newly-qualified ones.

Advice and guidance

GP Online reported more than 99% of practices in England have signed up for the £80m advice and guidance DES launched this year. Dr Taylor said it was ‘a no-brainer’ as practices were already carrying out the work without being paid. He added: “The challenge is if it’s used as a stop-gap mechanism for hospital failures in terms of getting patients seen, [then] it does put more work on general practice.” Dr Taylor also contributed to a Pulse report that other NHS organisations were to take on GP budgets under a ‘year of care’ plans.

Primary care budgets

He said: “GPs have experienced fixed budgets for patients for decades and have been unable to claim more or run at deficits. “Secondary care has run deficits and often been bailed out. Trusting secondary care with any element of primary care budgets is a recipe for disaster. “Patient funding for primary care and GP services needs to be higher and never lumped in with secondary care costs.”

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Now Dr Lizzie Toberty hopes a motion passed at the conference of England’s local medical committees (LMCs) will see resources made available to properly train and supervise staff hired via the additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS).

Putting forward the motion, Dr Toberty, from Newcastle and North Tyneside LMC, spoke about the “rigour, depth, and quality” required for training GPs.

She said: “The job of seeing, assessing and treating undifferentiated illness in the community is hard.

“It requires a very specific set of skills that are unique to primary care.

“It has both baffled and concerned me to observe huge numbers of ARRS staff being allowed to see undifferentiated and sometimes acutely unwell patients with no nationally funded or mandated training.

“We don’t let our GP registrars do it so why are we letting ARRS staff do it?

“We must implement funded training and supervision for new ARRS staff and pause any expansion on access until this is in place.”

Dr Toberty added: “Should ARRS staff be seeing undifferentiated patients? The reality is right now they are.

“This is about patient safety.

“They are not getting the supervision and I’m not even convinced some of them understand basics like two-week wait criteria.

“This motion is about having a pragmatic view and slowing things down.

“We need to slow down, train people properly and evidence what is going on, because once we have that evidence we can work out the future and where we want to go from here.”

The conference voted in favour of asking NHS England to pause the scheme and restructure it.

Speaking after the conference, Dr Toberty, who is also the Doctor Association UK’s (DAUK) GP Lead, said: “Up to this point it has defied logic that new to role ARRS staff have not had funded and mandated supervision.

“It is, and continues to be a risk to patient safety.

“The passing of this motion will hopefully mean the resources in future will be made available to train our staff properly.”