BMA must challenge new GP contract with “industrial action if necessary,” say doctors

The BMA must organise the withdrawal of general practices from England’s primary care networks by 2023 and lobby for that funding to be moved into the core contract, doctors have said.

The motion, passed at the BMA’s annual representative meeting 2022 in Brighton, also called for the association’s General Practitioners Committee for England to organise opposition to the new contract, including through “industrial action if necessary.”

The current five year GP contract was negotiated between the BMA and NHS England in 2019-20, with provision for negotiated changes every year. But negotiations came to a standstill in February 2022 when the BMA said it was clear that NHS England would not be offering sufficient measures to …