DAUK\u2019s GP lead says it\u2019s \u2018high time\u2019 the Government decided whether general practice was part of the NHS or not, as surgeries prepare for a hike in national insurance.\r\n\r\nDr Lizzie Toberty said that for too long, GPs were seen as part of the NHS when it suited governments and then seen as independent contractors when that suited them.\r\n\r\nShe pointed to the increase in national insurance contributions for general practices, which come into effect this month (April), as an example.\r\n\r\nAn amendment to exempt health and care providers, including GP services, from the higher rates in line with the rest of the NHS, had been voted through by the House of Lords.\r\n\r\nHowever, it was overturned in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Toberty said: \u201cThat was hugely disappointing because we all want to have more of this new money for the good of our patients.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd while she welcomed the agreed changes to the 2025\/26 GP contract as \u2018stabilising\u2019, Dr Toberty said much of the uplift would go back to the Treasury in national insurance.\r\n\r\n\u201cWith the contract that has been announced, there is a small uplift for most practices,\u201d said Dr Toberty, a GP based in Newcastle.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhile it\u2019s not enough, it does stabilise things and gives us an opportunity to work on a new contract.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe Government got its headlines, saying it was injecting all this cash into primary care.\r\n\r\n\u201cHowever, it knew it was going to put up national insurance and, in reality, it was taking quite a lot of that back to the Treasury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt illustrates that we are part of the NHS when it suits governments, and then when it suits we\u2019re not part of the NHS.\r\n\r\n\u201cEither we are part of the NHS and should be exempt from national insurance contributions, or we are not part of it and we shouldn’t have restrictions on our contracts that say that we can’t charge patients for private services.\r\n\r\n“It shouldn’t be both ways.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf I own a coffee shop and my national insurance contribution rises, I can put up the price of a coffee.\r\n\r\n\u201cGPs can\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe government needs to fall on one side of the fence or the other. It’s high time they decided.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf we’re not part of the NHS, then we need to start being treated like private businesses and given the ability to increase our income.\r\n\r\n\u201cOr we are part of the NHS and we need to have the benefits that come along with that, such as exemption from the national insurance increase.\r\n\r\nPlease support our work by contributing to our crowd funder<\/a> or by becoming a member<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DAUK\u2019s GP lead says it\u2019s \u2018high time\u2019 the Government decided whether general practice was part of the NHS or not, as surgeries prepare for a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,59,58],"tags":[557,61,23],"class_list":["post-1356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dauk-news","category-general-practice","category-the-nhs","tag-dauk-gp","tag-general-practice","tag-gp-crisis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}