General Practitioners: Contracts
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if implementation of the mandatory Advice and Guidance requirement in GP referral pathways will be paused pending the publication of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body's interim report on Advice and Guidance, expected in August 2026.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
The GP Contract’s changes for 2026/27 are underpinned by regulations, which have been laid before Parliament in the usual way, alongside an explanatory memorandum. There is currently no intention of pausing the implementation of the changes being made to Advice and Guidance (A&G) in 2026/27.
The 2026/27 GP Contract embeds the previous A&G enhanced service funding into core practice funding. Following near universal uptake of the Advice and Guidance Enhanced Service in 2025/26, the focus for 2026/27 is on stability and simplicity. Embedding the specialist advice model within the core contract recognises its role in routine clinical practice, removes annual signups, and provides more predictable funding while supporting consistent patient pathways.
The contract does not change the clinical threshold for referral to specialist care. General practitioners (GPs) should continue to make a clinical decision to refer for specialist care where that is in the patient’s best interests, and to request specialist advice where it is needed. GPs retain responsibility for referral decisions, and this model supports, and does not replace, clinical judgement. This reflects longstanding planned care referral practice and does not alter existing legal or professional accountability frameworks for GPs.
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