GP leader: “If general practice is the bedrock of the NHS, then the NHS is collapsing”

What has led GPs to vote for collective action?

General practice in England has been in “dire straits for an extremely long time,” Bramall-Stainer says, with 1300 practices lost in the past decade and 2000 fewer full time equivalent GPs since 2010.4

At the same time, the proportion of GP trainees who take up an NHS job within a year of completing their training has fallen from just under half to just over a third. “The profession itself is collapsing. And if general practice is the bedrock of the NHS, then the NHS is collapsing with it as well,” she warns.

The 2024-25 contract imposed by NHS England under the previous government offered practices an uplift of just 1.9%,5 which Bramall-Stainer says has already forced some to close. The financial pressure facing practices means that many GPs are now struggling to find work, despite huge demand and workload pressures.

“We never wanted to be where we find ourselves now,” she says. “I’ve been alarmingly consistent in wanting safety and stability immediately to stop practice closures and to stop GPs being haemorrhaged from the workforce.”

She also highlights the “moral injury” that …