The UK government was “holding a gun to the head” of GPs by saying that they must negotiate on changes to their contract, even though it was determined to introduce them regardless, a GP leader said last week.

The Department of Health for England has offered GPs a 1.5% uplift to their funding if they agree to changes to the general medical services (GMS) contract for next year. These changes would include a range of new indicators in the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), the incentive scheme that rewards GPs for achieving targets in a range of treatment domains, and a raising of the achievement thresholds for all indicators in the framework.

But it …