Pay has risen more for GPs than for hospital consultants, claims Department of Health

General practitioners’ pay has increased by proportionally more since 2002 than salaries of hospital consultants, the Department of Health has claimed.

In its evidence on general medical practitioners for the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB),1 the department states that cash pay for GPs in England on the general medical services (GMS) contract rose by 46% between 2002-3 and 2009-10 (the last year for which figures are available) but increased by only 36.4% for consultants.

In real terms, pay rose over this period by 24% for GPs and 16.1% for consultants. The department has estimated that between 2002-3 and 2010-11 real terms pay rose by 22% overall for GPs and by 19.7% for consultants.

The health department attributes this disparity in pay rises to the increases that GPs received in the three years from 2003-4 to 2005-6 after the introduction of the new GMS contract.

Average net earnings for GPs peaked at £111 566 in 2006-7, but cash income has fallen year on year since 2005-6, it adds. Practice expenses have increased by £58 629 overall since 2002-3, with the ratio of expenses to earnings creeping up to a new high of 0.62 to 0.38 in 2010-11.

The health department has suggested that GPs on the GMS contract should receive a 1.5% uplift in gross income in 2013, which it says would allow for an average pay increase of up to 1% for GPs and practice staff, in line with the wider public sector pay policy, and for a wide margin for increases in non-staff expenses.

However, the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee has not agreed to this increase and other proposals for the GMS contract next year, arguing that some of the intended changes are not based on sound clinical evidence or are not practical or feasible.2

The department will invite the DDRB to make recommendations on the pay uplift for general practice if a negotiated settlement with the committee cannot be reached, and has submitted evidence on recruitment and retention, earnings and expenses, and other relevant developments in general practice to support the DDRB decision.

In its evidence the health department stated that job satisfaction among GPs has risen from a score of 4.7 out of 7 in 2008 to 4.9 out of 7 in 2010 and that average working hours have stayed stable at 41.4 hours a week, with significantly fewer GPs doing out of hours work in 2010 than in 2008 (21% and 32%, respectively).3

The average number of patients per GP in England has fallen from 1780 in 2001 to 1562 (a 12% decrease) in 2011, the department adds, partly because the number of GPs is growing faster than the number of patients.

The data also show that fewer GPs are planning to quit the direct care of patients in the next five years, with the proportion falling from 7.1% to 6.4% among GPs under 50 years old and from 43.2% to 41.7% among GPs aged 50 or over.