Local Matters
Cambs LMC Mental Health Survey
Last call to complete our Mental Health Survey which closes at 12noon on Wednesday 11 June 2025.
https://forms.office.com/e/cazeQWJhC6
If you havent already done so, or are stretched for time, please take a look and just answer those relevant to you.
Anyone wishing to raise a specific concern for us to take forward on their behalf can of course contact us at office@cambslmc.org. Thank you in advance
Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) for weight management in General Practice
GPC England has produced a Focus on Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) for weight management in General Practice document, which explains how Tirzepatide is used, commissioning arrangements (responsibility for funding lies with ICBs), and responding to information requests from private providers.
Please see our webpage for links to guidance and template letter.
From your Local IGPM Representative…
Dear fellow Cambridgeshire & Peterborough practice managers
Please find attached the IGPM response to the recent pay proposals impacting General Practice and the concerns raised in terms of the erosion of recent funding uplifts.
If you are not an associate member of the IGPM then you are missing out on an extensive network of support from fellow PMs with a huge wealth of experience, insight, knowledge and resources.
All this could be yours for just £50 a year. More info is available here: https://www.igpm.org.uk/membership
At a time when the NHS is advocating the introduction of formal standards of performance across all NHS management roles, let IGPM represent you in advocating something fit for purpose in General Practice. We have an existing accreditation pathway and representation at the table to ensure the collective voice of PMs is heard as these plans are made.
If you would like to find out more about how the IGPM can support you then please do get in touch. I am here to help as your regional IGPM representative in any way I can.
Kind regards,
Melanie Gearing – Practice Manager, Alconbury & Brampton Surgeries
National BMA Update
DDRB pay award 2025-2026
The DDRB pay award recommendations for 2025-26 were finally announced, with a 4% uplift to the pay element of the GP contract and the pay range for salaried GPs. The Government has accepted the recommendations in full, but 4% won’t be enough to ‘fix the front door’ of the NHS nor expand GP teams and ‘bring back the family doctor’.
BMA’s new report The Value of a GP informs HM Treasury ahead of the comprehensive spending review why only more investment into general practice will secure the recovery of the wider NHS.
GPC England Chair, Dr Katie Bramall has written to Wes Streeting to seek necessary clarity and to ensure GPs and practices face no financial disadvantage. We need clear funding to ensure the full 4% can be passed onto employed GPs, to meet AfC guidance in ARRS roles, and have also made the case as to why the 4% needs to be applied across all three pay domains to support practice stability.
It is clear there is insufficient investment to allow practices to create additional GP roles. Mr Streeting was advised in late July 2024 of GPC England’s view that whilst the GPs in ARRS policy was helpful as a quick fix upon immediate arrival in Government, it won’t deliver on improving continuity of care, nor social equity, nor the evolving problem of emerging GP unemployment.
Mr Streeting has been asked again to look at direct practice reimbursement for additional GP roles. Government needs to act now, ahead of August, and ahead of the new cohort of GPs qualifying in this country, many of whom will be preparing for under-employment, and unemployment. We have a moral and ethical duty to them, and the taxpayer, to keep them in our NHS practices, providing care to patients. GPs without jobs = patients without care.
GP Wellbeing Resources
After the shock and upset of the Bank Holiday events in Liverpool, thoughts turn to our GP colleagues providing help and support to affected communities. So often BMA is the first port of call for societal stress, and that can take its toll. That week also saw the tragic news of the loss of life of Chorley GP, Zak Uddin. Thoughts are with his family, practice and patients.
Please remember you have the support of your colleagues, LMC and the BMA. A range of wellbeing and support services are available to doctors, and anybody who is feeling under strain is encouraged to seek support. Please take a moment to check in on your colleagues’ wellbeing and look out for each other.
Support comes in various forms, from the BMA’s counselling and peer support services, NHS practitioner health service and non-medical support services such as Samaritans. The organisation Doctors in Distress also provides mental health support for health workers in the UK. Also take a look at a poster with 10 top tips to help support the wellbeing of you and your colleagues.
The Cameron Fund supports GPs and their families in times of financial need, whether through ill-health, disability, bereavement, relationship breakdown or loss of employment. The RCGP also has information on GP wellbeing support.
Please visit the BMA’s wellbeing support services page or call 0330 123 1245 for wellbeing support.
GP Unemployment Campaign
The BMA’s Sessional GPs Committee and GP Registrars Committee launched a major campaign to expose the worsening crisis of GP under and unemployment. In a joint letter to the Secretary of State, the committees issued an urgent call for action, warning that up to a thousand GP registrars finishing training this August could be left without jobs, despite patients facing severe delays in care and practising GPs struggling under unsafe, unsustainable workloads. This unacceptable situation is backed by our survey: 15% of GPs couldn’t find any suitable work, 56% are seeking more NHS hours without success, and 21% are planning to leave the profession altogether.
The letter demands immediate Government intervention, including ring fenced, direct to practice core funding separate from the failing ARRS scheme, to employ newly qualified and underemployed GPs in roles that deliver continuity of care. Read more about the GP un/underemployment campaign.
New drive to find undiagnosed infected blood patients
All new patients registering at GP practices are to be asked if they had a blood transfusion before 1996, as part of an NHS drive to find undiagnosed patients affected by the contaminated blood scandal. Each year, around 400,000 people born before 1996 – around half of new sign-ups online – will now be asked if they received a historic blood transfusion, with those who did then being offered a test for hepatitis C.
Patients will be able to order discreet, self-testing hepatitis C kits to complete at home, involving an easy finger prick blood sample which is then posted to a lab for analysis – or they can also access testing at GP surgeries, sexual health clinics and other services.
Seniority payments update
Seniority payments were historically made to GP partners based on their length of NHS service and income received. The Scheme closed to new members on 1 April 2014 and was then phased out over a six-year period to March 2020. These annually released sums were diverted into the Global Sum.
Seniority payments were based on thirds of average partner income, with no payment being made if a partner drew under a third of average income, 60% between one-third and two-thirds, and those receiving over two thirds average income receiving a full payment. The actual entitlement depended on the publication of each year’s Final Seniority Factor (FSF), which was last published in April 2020.
After many months of discussions, BMA has now finally received assurances from PCSE that they will not seek to undertake a reconciliation exercise for the financial years 2013/14, 2014/15 or 2015/16. However, a very small number of practices may receive further communications in future about the Tranche 1 years (2017/18, 2018/19, and 2019/20). Further information is available here.
Removal from Performer’s List: Urgent, 111 and Out of Hours GPs
BMA has been alerted to several areas where GPs exclusively working in OOH, 111 and urgent care have been informed that that they will need to be removed from the Primary Medical Performers’ List. They have been advised to resign from the performers list, or risk a formal removal process.
Concerns have been raised centrally with NHSE as this risks unnecessarily removing a cohort of GPs that are delivering primary medical services, which could impact upon their ability to undertake practice work in the future.
If you have been affected by this, BMA would be keen to hear from you, if you are a BMA member, please contact via the member services Contact us and our GPC email: info.gpc@bma.org.uk
Foresight AI model trained on GP data
Following reports in the press that GP Data extracted via GPES under a repurposed COVID-19 extract formed part of a wider set of data that had been used to train an AI model without knowledge or approval of an advisory group set up to oversee it, BMA and RCGP wrote to NHS England via the Joint GP IT Committee.
In its letter, BMA outlined the seriousness of this action and sought immediate clarity on how the data sharing took place. This is an ongoing situation, and further updates are expected in the next BMA update.