The Royal College of Nursing and BMA GP Committee (England) have issued a joint statement warning that the announcement of the 6% pay award for general practice nurses, for which funding will be provided from November, does not go far enough.
The two organisations say that the 6% uplift will not be enough to address the current cost of living crisis and workforce attrition across general practice, including the disparity between GPN employment terms compared with other parts of the NHS.
The RCN and GPCE said: ‘It is well understood that nurses in general practice play a fundamental role in health promotion and prevention. Their role is essential to the provision of safe and effective care. Fair pay and attractive working conditions for all salaried staff are vital to secure and maintain the future of general practice.’
An additional 3.9% funding is due to be distributed to practices via the Global Sum formula allocation, and backdated to April 2023. It is then the responsibility of practices to decide arrangements for staff salary uplifts.
The joint statement says: ‘We encourage employers to use this increase in funding as the opportunity to invest in their staff.’
However, the RCN and GPCE warn that the uplift may not translate to a 6% uplift for all practice staff. The Global Sum is calculated using a formula that weights the payment per patient to each practice based on age/sex/additional needs/list turnover/staff market forces and rurality. This means some practices will not receive enough additional funding to cover the entire 6% uplift for all salaried staff members, whereas others will in fact get more than they need to do so.
The RCN and GPCE are committed to working closely together to ensure fully funded fairer terms for nurses in general practice as an integral part of the general practice team.
They say: ‘Securing recurrent pay uplifts for all practice staff is vital for the future success of general practice. Key to successfully negotiating with the government in forthcoming contract negotiations for 2024/25 and 2025/2026 is making the case that staff should be fairly paid and benefit from rewarding working conditions.
‘We believe the key to successful recruitment and retention of these essential [GPN] roles lies in securing contractual parity with trust nursing roles, through protected funding and dedicated development programmes.’
