Northumberland GP surgery manager worried that Budget could cost practice £40,000 a year
by Daniel Hall · ChronicleLiveThe manager of a Northumberland GP surgery says that tax and wage hikes announced in the Budget could cost his surgery around £40,000 a year.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a hike in national insurance employer contributions last Wednesday that will kick in from April 2025. However, GP surgeries, which operate like small businesses, are not eligible for an exemption from the NICs hike, which No 10 says is consistent with the approach of previous governments.
Paul Stanley, practice manager at Gas House Lane Surgery in Morpeth, says that the hike is "undoubtedly a concern" and that staffing would equate to around 65 - 70% of costs. The practice currently employs 27 staff across all areas of the business.
The 50-year-old told ChronicleLive: "Ultimately, if we haven't got enough money to have enough staff, then it's going to be much more difficult for patients to access general practice. It might take longer for the phones to be answered, or patients might have to wait longer to see GPs, nurses or pharmacists."
No 10 said that The Department of Health would confirm their funding for general practices later in the year. Paul hopes that the renegotiation of his surgery's GP contract, which is handled by the British Medical Association (BMA), will increase in value to reflect the additional cost of increased national insurance contributions and a "significant" hike in the minimum wage.
However, he is "not massively hopeful." He told ChronicleLive: "Over the course of the last seven or eight years, we've generally seen an erosion in funding to general practice, so in real terms we're almost taking a hit on an annual basis.
"Costs are going up, staff costs are going up, but the level of funding isn't going along with it. It's barely keeping track with inflation to all intents and purposes."
Should funding not increase, Gas House Lane, along with many others, will have to "cut cloth accordingly". Paul added: "Our staff are our most expensive and most precious resource but a reduction in funding, such as it is, might potentially see a reduction in staffing which may mean access becomes more difficult.
"I would like to think we wouldn't be talking about redundancy, we'd more likely be talking about trying to generate more efficiencies and trying to reduce costs elsewhere."
Just 8.4% of the entire NHS budget was allocated to general practice in 2023/24, which is the first port of call for many users. Paul believes the budget should have been altered to reflect this, finishing: "General practice is the gateway to the heath service, and it would have been lovely to see that recognised with increased funding.
"If people get appropriate access to primary care and we have more resources and more staffing, that will ultimately impact on reducing waiting times for A&E, for example, further down the line."
Nationally, the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) has called for "urgent assurances" from Health Secretary Wes Streeting that practices will be protected like "the rest of the NHS and public sector," and made exempt from the hike in NIC employer contributions.
A spokesperson for No 10 said: "We have taken tough decisions to fix the foundations so a £22 billion boost for the NHS and social care could be announced at the Budget. The employer national insurance rise doesn’t kick in until April, and we will set out further details on allocation of funding for next year in due course."
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