General practice nurses eligible for 6% pay rise this year

The government announced this week that it had accepted the recommendations of the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) for 2024-25.

“It’s crucial that we turn around nursing pay for everyone providing NHS services”

Nicola Ranger

Around 15,000 GPs in England will now receive a pay rise through a 6% uplift to the GP contract on a consolidated basis.

The government confirmed that this award was intended to cover GP contractors, salaried GPs and salaried practice staff, including GPNs.

Each practice as an individual employer can set their own pay, terms and conditions for their employees, and employees are not subject to Agenda for Change terms and conditions.

This means that GPNs are not eligible for the pay determined by the recommendations of the NHS Pay Review Body or other negotiations related to NHS pay.

Because of this, GPNs have, in recent years, struggled to receive pay parity with their NHS colleagues.

In an email sent by to its members, seen by Nursing Times, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) committed to ensuring GPNs get equal pay this year.

It comes as it was announced earlier this week that nurses and other NHS Staff on Agenda for Change contracts in England would receive a 5.5% pay rise for 2024-25.

RCN general secretary and chief executive, Professor Nicola Ranger, said in the email: “All nursing staff who provide NHS services should receive an award of at least this amount, no matter where you work.

“Your hard work and commitment to delivering quality care in general practice cannot be ignored.”

Professor Ranger said that she would “make urgent representations to make sure funding is available” so that GPNs benefit from a 2024-25 pay award of at least 5.5%.

She also noted that many GPNs were yet to receive the promised pay increase for 2023-24.

An RCN survey published earlier this year revealed that almost half of GPNs did not receive a pay rise last year, while a third said they had received one but it was lower than the 6% they should have received.

Just 20% of respondents said they had received the full 6% pay offer, and of those, 19% had not received back pay to April 2023.

Professor Ranger said: “I’m also aware that many of you have yet to receive the promised pay increase from last year – this is unacceptable.

“As part of my discussions, I’ll demand that the new government takes action to remedy this.”

She added: “To turn around an NHS gripped by workforce shortages, it’s crucial that we turn around nursing pay for everyone providing NHS services.

“As demand for care continues to rise, the government cannot shy away from investing fully in our profession.”

Details about the implementation of the NHS Pay Review Body and DDRB awards are yet to be confirmed by the government.

It is understood that Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England are due to consult the British Medical Association (BMA) on the uplift to the GP contract and further information will be available once these discussions are concluded.

Separately, the BMA announced today that more than 8,500 GPs in England have voted overwhelmingly in favour of taking industrial action.

The union has argued that GPs are being forced to do more with less and practices are not being given the funding they need to handle growing pressures.

It comes as general practices get just 6% of guaranteed funding of the entire NHS budget.

The BMA’s GP committee for England has called for this to gradually increase by 1% per year until it reaches 15%.

For the first time in 60 years, GPs will now take at least one action to put the pressure on the government to invest more in general practice.

Actions could include refusing to share patient data unless it is in the best interests of a patient, referring patients directly to specialist care rather than following longer and more complex NHS processes and switching off NHS software which tries to cut prescribing costs.

Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of the BMA GP committee for England, said: “This is an act of desperation.

“For too long, we’ve been unable to provide the care we want to.

“We are witnessing general practice being broken.”

Dr Bramall-Stainer noted that almost all GPs voted to reject the 2024-25 GP contract earlier this year, as it committed a funding uplift of just 1.9% for general practice. 

She added: “We understand that the new government has inherited a broken NHS, and we’ve had some positive conversations with the new health secretary about the situation in general practice.

“The DDRB award is a small a step in the right direction but we still have hundreds of millions less resource to run our practices compared to even five years ago.

“Practices are still closing, so we have no choice but to move ahead with collective action to protect our practices, and our patients.”