The UK Government must change the way it funds general practices in England to ensure nurses get fair pay, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has urged.
A new survey of general practice nursing staff in England by the union suggested that three in 10 did not receive a pay rise in the last year, despite additional funds from the government.
“The government must now change the funding model for general practice and ringfence money for staff”
Patricia Marquis
The RCN has now said that money must be ringfenced for general practice nurse pay which, at a “minimum”, reflects NHS pay.
GP nursing staff are typically employed by the surgery itself, and not the NHS.
As independent organisations, surgeries can set pay independently of the Agenda for Change pay structure.
This has meant that, in recent years, the pay of some practice nurses has not kept pace with their NHS counterparts.
In August, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced a £311m increase to the block grant – known as the global sum – for general practice, and that it expected surgeries to use this to find a 6% pay rise for all practice staff for 2024-25.
However, the RCN survey suggests that the pay increase has not reached a substantial number of nursing staff based in these settings.
Around a fifth of staff directly employed by their surgeries in England told the RCN they received the 6% pay rise.
Three in 10 received no pay rise at all, while almost half received less than 6%.
Of those who received less than 6%, a third said they were given no reason for this and one in 10 said their employer told them they were “not required” to pass on the funding increase to nursing staff wages.
Patricia Marquis
RCN England director Patricia Marquis said, following the latest survey results, that practice staff were being “failed” by the government on pay and that there must be “ringfenced” funding in the future for staff pay.
Ms Marquis added: “While the government has made it clear that it wants to move more care into the community, it is failing to invest in those tasked with making it happen.
“An understaffed workforce is already struggling to recruit and retain people to the profession needed to deliver high-quality care to a growing number of patients.
“The government must now change the funding model for general practice and ringfence money for staff.”
The issue of pay for GP staff is a recurring one.
Just over a year ago, the RCN ran a survey that painted a very similar picture; a fifth of nursing staff said they had received the expected 6% pay rise for 2023-24, a third had received a lower one, and 44% received none at all.
In 2023, Ms Marquis wrote to then-minister for primary care Neil O’Brien raising concerns about the general practice funding model and the risk of nurses going without their owed pay rise.
A new GP contract, which would see a further £889m given to practices in England across the next financial year, was agreed this week.
This new contract will, among other changes, add practice nurses to the additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS), allowing more to be recruited without a further strain on GP budgets.
A DHSC spokesperson said: “This government inherited a broken NHS where general practice and nurses had been neglected for years, but through our Plan for Change we will fix the front door of the health service – shifting the focus from hospital to community.
“We hugely value the vital work of general practice nurses and have proposed the biggest boost to GP funding in years, an extra £889m.
“Government funding has been made available for pay uplifts, and this should be passed on to salaried practice staff.”
A new GP contract for Wales was also recently agreed, which included permanent funding for a 6% pay rise for all salaried staff worth £20m.
