Jeremy Miles MS, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care
I am pleased to announce we will be investing £52.1m into general practice this year, as a result of the successful conclusion of negotiations over the 2024-25 General Medical Services (GMS) contract. This is the single biggest annual investment in GMS since the pandemic.
As part of this investment, the following funding arrangements have been agreed with GPC Wales:
- To meet the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body (DDRB) recommendation of a 6% uplift to the GP pay element of the contract;
- For the fifth consecutive year, we have provided funding to enable the same uplift to be awarded to all practice staff, in recognition of the valuable contribution of the wider practice team to the delivery of high-quality services. This equates to £12.7m for staff pay expenses;
- A further £1.8m has been agreed to support practices with ongoing business expenses
- £4m of additional capacity fund investment in 2024-25 with a commitment to continue at the same level for 2025-26 as part of this overall settlement.
The Welsh Government recognises the pressures and increased costs facing general practice, including the high demand for GP services, with practices delivering 1.6m appointments every month – this reflects the trust and value the public have in general practice. To support GPs, I am making an additional £23m available in 2024-25 as a one-off practice stabilisation payment.
The Welsh Government, NHS Wales and GPC Wales have agreed to continue to work together, in social partnership, to explore potential solutions to these sustainability issues through different service models, which will also support our shared aim of delivering more care closer to home including diagnostics.
The agreement also sees progress in a number of other areas to drive improvements in general practice for the benefit of the public, GPs, and the wider health and care system.
To continue to build on improvement in access to GP services, we have agreed to an immediate review to strengthen compliance with the GMS Access Standards around the 8am bottleneck and pre-bookable appointments.
The NHS Wales App will make it easier for people to access care, advice, book appointments and gain information from their GP. As a result of this year’s contract agreement, people will be able to order repeat prescriptions and increasingly request appointments through the app. People who need support with the initial identity verification process to register for the app will be able to access this through their local GP practice.
To improve equitable access to services for people across Wales, we have agreed the learning disabilities annual health check will become part of unified services within the GMS contract and will be offered by every GP practice.
A change to the treatment pathway for the Covid-19 anti-viral medication has also been agreed. All those who are eligible will be able to contact their GP practice – or out-of-hours service – if they test positive for Covid-19 to be clinically assessed for anti-viral medication; it will be prescribed and dispensed if appropriate.
It will become a contractual requirement for GPs to proactively identify and record people who are living with severe or moderate frailty using an evidenced-based tool. GPs will also be required to collect and record patient ethnicity data. Both of these changes will support the planning and delivery of more holistic services for patients.
In recognition of the importance of continuity of care, we will bring forward a quality improvement project to support the measurement of continuity of care within practices which, when developed and agreed, will form part of the Quality Improvement Framework.
Further joint-working commitments will see substantive reviews of the additional capacity fund and the GMS Access Standards, with recommendations informing future rounds of contract negotiations.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all colleagues in GPC Wales and NHS Wales for their ongoing commitment to a programme of contract reform that aims to strengthen the sustainability of general practice and ensure GP services remain available and accessible to everyone in Wales.