Dr Steve Taylor was speaking on national radio about a survey by Pulse, which found that an estimated quarter of GP referrals to secondary care are returned as unsolicited Advice and Guidance.

He told listeners of Times Radio that the additional workload was putting further pressure on an already overstretched general practice.

Dr Taylor said GPs were paid 20% less in real terms than 10 years ago as he called on the Government to invest in general practice to help ease pressure across the NHS and improve access for patients.

Underemployed GPs

He said there were around 3,000 underemployed GPs who could work more hours if practices had the resources to employ them.

“If the money was available today, we could have 10% more appointments tomorrow,” he said.

Dr Taylor said that hospital waiting lists had increased significantly since 2010, when around 2 million people were waiting for hospital treatment compared with approximately 7 million today.

“Over that period we’ve seen 20% more work being done in general practice,” he said. “Last month a record 35 million appointments took place in general practice, half of those with GPs. Compare that with the 2 million who attended A&E.

“GPs are really frustrated. We just want to see more funding in primary care, to employ the unemployed and underemployed GPs and get the whole thing working better again.”

Advice and Guidance

Advice and Guidance was introduced to help GPs seek specialist input while patients waited for hospital care, or before making a referral.

However, Dr Taylor said it had increasingly resulted in hospitals returning referrals to GPs with requests for further work to be carried out in primary care.

He said: “If I’m dealing with all the referral bounce backs, and I’m also dealing with the people that are waiting for hospital treatments, then there are going to be issues for me providing appointments for today.”

Listen to the interview with Dr Taylor on the DAUK Instagram.

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The BMA GPC is urging GP partnerships and practices across England to take part in action, given Government’s insufficient assurances regarding its concerns over the 2026/27 GMS contract.

The collective action announced by the BMA focuses on data sharing agreements.

Patient care

Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK’s GP co-lead, said the collective action was being taken to protect patient care.

He GPs were being asked to ‘absorb’ increasing workloads without additional resources.

Dr Taylor said: “The BMA GPC by majority decision has indicated the Government and NHS England haven’t gone far enough in responding to the concerns of GPs. Although some progress had been made this is far too little and far too late.

“The Government must understand that GPs can no longer be the sponge absorbing the additional work in the NHS without the resources and support needed.

Collective action

“We support collective action as a way of protecting the future of patient care and ensuring that there are GPs for patients in the future.

“This is about ensuring patient care is available in the years to come.

“The Government should realise that this is a priority for the population and that GPs are fighting for patient access and provision.”

Read more on the BMA GPC decision.

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According to a report in GP Online, Operose Health has approached practices with proposals to take over their NHS contracts.

DAUK GP lead Dr Steve Taylor warned that such models risk fundamentally reshaping general practice.

“It’s a sort of creeping corporatisation of general practice, which I think in the end will basically cause worse care,” he said.

Dr Taylor followed up the article with a post on social media.

He said: “General practice at risk. Email from Operose Health is a sign of things to come, creeping corporatisation of general practice, which will end in worse care

“There has been a significant decline in GP partners as costs rise and no funds.”

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It reports that NHS England has excluded GPs from early planning for new neighbourhood healthcare models.

GP Online reported that NHS England had written to integrated care boards (ICBs) and acute trusts asking for their plans on delivering neighbourhood health.

Neighbourhood models

Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK’s GP co-lead, said the omission of GPs ‘highlighted significant issues with the current approach’ to neighbourhood models.

He said: “The top down approach from government with imposition and expectation of ICBs to implement community care will be more costly and fail to provide genuine services closer to home, unless there is genuine consultation and engagement with GPs.”

Read the GP Online article in full.

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Dr Steve Taylor was speaking to Pulse after new figures revealed the money spent on primary care in the past decade by NHS England and ICBs.

The data, Pulse reported, showed that ‘primary care consistently received one of the lowest shares of funding’.

Underfunded primary care

Dr Taylor said: “Successive governments have underfunded primary care and in particular GP services.

“These figures demonstrate what is seen week by week with issues of access to services.

“These figures demonstrate government would be better off spending NHS funding on community services rather than gimmicks.

“There are 6,300 neighbourhood centres already in walking distance of 80% of people – GP practices.”

Read the Pulse article in full.

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Almost 17,000 GPs and GP registrars took part in the BMA’s referendum, with 98.9% voting against the plans.

They have called on the Government to return to negotiation with the BMA’s GP committee (BMA GPC) to jointly develop and agree a brand new contract.  

Full support

Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK’s GP co-lead, said: “The DAUK GP team is in full support of the BMA GPC.

“The Government and the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, need to hear the overwhelming feedback from GPs that the new imposed contract is unacceptable.

“It creates needless barriers for patient care, and massive increase in workloads for GPs and their teams.

“It is vital that progress is made in the next few weeks to address the concerns of general practices.

“If this Labour Government is genuine about bringing back the family doctor then it needs to listen and act on concerns.”

Unequivocal rejection

BMA GPC England chair Dr Katie Bramall said: “This is an unequivocal rejection from GPs across England.

“The Government cannot ignore the strength of feeling from a profession that is already at breaking point.

“These proposals heap unsafe, unfunded additional workload on to practices, forcing GPs to deliver more with less, putting patient care at risk.

“Patient groups and GPs alike are united in their concerns around Hospitals rejecting GP referrals to access appropriate specialist care.

Waiting lists

“When the Government promised a ‘shift from hospital to the community’ we did not think this would be their own waiting lists.

“Mandating unlimited access without the staff, time, or infrastructure needed to deliver it is not a plan, but a fast-track to collapse GP services, pushing GPs to either walk away due to the moral injury it inflicts, or force them to close their doors due to the pressures placed on them.

“In some settings it may even tip family doctors to ‘do a dentist’ and see if they can offer a better, safer service privately.

“GPs simply want to provide the safe care their patients need, but they know they are being set up to fail with this imposed contract, the referendum result speaks for itself.”

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Jess’s Rule is a safety initiative urging GPs to ‘think again’ if they see a patient three times with the same symptoms.

It was welcomed by DAUK when it was introduced last year.

Jess’s Rule

Speaking to Doctors.Net, Dr Taylor, DAUK’s GP co-lead, said the requirement in the new contract to expand the use of advice and guidance (A&G) could be at odds with the requirements of Jess’s Rule.

He said: “A&G changes will reduce patient choice and the ability of GPs to refer patients.

“GPs are generalist experts in patient care and when they refer it is always for good reasons.”

New GP contract

He added: “The new GP contract has a number of big issues which will affect patient care adversely and reduce the ability of practices to provide high quality care.”

Read the article in full on Doctors.Net.

Meanwhile, Dr Taylor has also commented in the medical media on new online access figures.

Pulse has reported on NHS England data showing GP practices received 9.2 million online requests in January, up from 7.8 million in December.

GP appointments

Dr Taylor said the increase in online requests did not mean there had been an increase in the available number of GP appointments.

He said: “Online forms are work for GPs and their teams, so the data means 2 million more bits of work without the resources to provide them.

“GPs want better access to care for patients but they recognise it’s not online forms that patients want, it’s GP appointments, and without the resources reality will not be met with the expectations raised by this Government.”

Read the article in full on the Pulse website.

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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.”

Read the full response.

Meanwhile, the BMJ has reported on Dr Taylor comments that the increase in general practice funding ‘merely tinkers around the edges of what’s needed’.

And Medscape has reported on Dr Taylor’s comments that financial incentives linked to prescribing weight-loss drugs, are ‘a smokescreen’ for an ‘appalling’ new contract.

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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.

Listen to Dr Taylor’s interview in full on DAUK’s Instagram.

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Dr Steve Taylor, GP co-lead for the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), said the £485 million announced by the Government was actually worth around £85 million when adjusted for inflation.

He said the contract fell short of what was required to meet the Labour Government’s manifesto pledge to ‘bring back the family doctor’.

And he added that there was an ‘incredibly disappointing’ lack of vision for the future of general practice.

Dr Taylor said: “We welcome any increase in GP funding, but this is not bold enough.

“The new GP contract merely tinkers around the edges of what is needed to genuinely bring back the family doctor, which was Labour’s manifesto pledge.

“The funding increase for core general practice is only £85m, when adjusted for inflation, and will not go very far.

“The lack of genuine core funding, combined with a lack of vision for what can be achieved, is incredibly disappointing given the Labour Government is nearly two years into its tenure.”

Dr Taylor highlighted DAUK’s Your GP, here for you campaign, which calls for a GP contract that puts patients at the heart of care.

DAUK’s contract is designed to strengthen continuity, improve access, and ensure GP services are properly funded.

DAUK’s proposals are based on The future of general practice, the 2022 Health and Social Care Committee report produced with cross-party support.

Key recommendations are around continuity of care and removal of the tick-box top-down management of care.

Delivering this vision will require the Government to increase core GP funding by £40 per patient per year – less than £1 a week – to restore funding to the real-terms level of 2016. 

Dr Taylor said: “DAUK has proposed a genuine alternative, ‘Your GP, here for you’, which puts patients first, frees GPs from bureaucratic barriers and encourages improvement in continuity of care.

“The next steps must include these otherwise this will see the end of general practice, patients will suffer, and the health of the nation will deteriorate.”

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

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