'An act of desperation': GPs vote for industrial action for the first time in 60 years

GPs across England will stage industrial action for the first time in 60 years, potentially leading to months of “slow-burn” disruption for patients.

Doctors balloted by the British Medical Association (BMA) “overwhelmingly” voted in favour of collective action, with 98.3% of 8,500 respondents backing the measure.

The industrial action comes amid a row over funding. The previous Conservative government increased GP budgets by just 1.9% this year – leaving surgeries just 30 pence per day per registered patient, the BMA has argued.

“We had a huge response to this ballot, and the results are clear – GPs are at the end of their tether,” said Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of BMA’s GP committee for England.

“This is an act of desperation. For too long, we’ve been unable to provide the care we want to. We are witnessing general practice being broken. The era of the family doctor has been wiped out by recent consecutive governments and our patients are suffering as a result.”

GPs want a larger proportion of the NHS budget. At present, general practices get only 6% of guaranteed funding. The BMA believes this needs to gradually increase by 1% year on year, to 15%.

Health secretary Wes Streeting has previously promised to “fix the front door to the NHS” by rediverting funds to family doctors, but hasn’t outlined a contract uplift yet.

The new collective action will be unwelcome news for Streeting, who recently resolved an ongoing industrial dispute with junior doctors by offering them a 22% pay increase.

How will GP industrial action impact you?

The BMA has given members a list of 10 collective action options to choose from.

These include limiting appointments to 25 per day. For comparison, some practices see up to 60 patients a day at present. Others may include refusing to share patient data unless it’s in the best interests of a patient, referring patients directly to specialist care rather than following longer and more complex NHS processes and switching off NHS software which tries to cut prescribing costs. 

“Practices can choose to implement as few or as many as they think appropriate,” the BMA said in a statement.

Dr Bramall-Stainer insisted that the structure of the action was designed to limit impact on patients.

“This will not be a ‘big bang’. It will be a slow burn,” she said. “It’s likely that impact may not be felt for some time. We hope this will give the new government time to consider our proposed solutions including fixing our contract once and for all.”

The last time GPs took “collective action” was in 1964, under the Wilson government. Doctors collectively handed in undated resignations, leading to the introduction of the Family Doctor Charter in 1965 and major changes in how GPs were trained and funded.

The Department of Health and Social Care has been approached for comment.

Read Full Fact’s fact-checking article here.

Following publication of this story, Big Issue was contacted by Full Fact to point out that GPs were among those that voted for, and took part in, strikes that occurred that June 2012 in a dispute over pensions.

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