General Practitioners: Employers' Contributions

We have made necessary decisions to fix the foundations of the public finances in the Autumn Budget. Resource spending for the Department will be £22.6 billion more in 2025/26 than in 2023/24, as part of the Spending Review settlement. The employers’ National Insurance contribution (NIC) rise will be implemented in April 2025.

The definition of who is in scope is based on the Office for National Statistics classification of the entity paying employer NICs. This applies to employees who are directly employed by the public sector, but not, for example, where services are contracted out. Any other approach would result in differential treatment between private sector employers. General practices (GPs) are independent contractors and do not fall within this remit. This is consistent with the approach taken by previous Governments.

We recently announced a proposed funding uplift to the GP contract for 2025/26 of £889 million, representing a 7.2% cash growth, estimated at approximately 4.8% real terms growth. This is the largest uplift to GP funding since the beginning of the five-year framework and means we are reversing the recent trend with a rising share of total National Health Service resources going to GPs. We are currently consulting the profession on the annual GP contract.