Voting eligibility
You must be a BMA member practicing in England as one of the following:
- a GMS or PMS-contract holding GP contractor / partner
- a salaried GP
- a locum GP
- a retainer GP
- a ‘other GP – clinical’
- a ‘other GP – non-clinical’
- a out of hours GP
- a GP Registrar
- a specialty trainee ST1-5 with General Practice as their specialty
This referendum is about changes to NHS General Practice service contracts for 2026-27, i.e. from 1 April 2026, and how this impacts you as a GP or GP registrar working in those settings.
You must be a BMA member to vote. Non members can join by the 19 March and still vote.
Note: locum GPs are eligible to vote
We have resolved an issue affecting some locum GPs in which they could not enter their details into our system. We are sorry this caused inconvenience and anxiety for those of you who were affected. If you have not already received it, you will be receiving your voting emails from 17 March 2026 via Civica.
Please contact [email protected] if you still haven’t received your email with your e-voting link by 18 March 2026 and we will swiftly assist you to get your email.
If you have not received your voting link
BMA members
The referendum is being run independently by Civica. You will therefore receive your email from them. They will send out voting emails in regular intervals as members join and or update their membership details in the coming days / weeks, so please do not panic. The referendum closes on 25 March at midday.
1. Check your junk folders in the email account you have registered with the BMA.
2. Log-in and check your membership data with us is up to date.
Civica receives new membership data from the BMA twice per week, which enables them to send out voting links to new and existing members who have recently updated their details. Each working day the BMA sends Civica new/updated data, Civica sends out voting link emails two working days after that.
If you are having issues getting your voting email or updating your details on your BMA member profile, please let us know via this form so we can swiftly assist.
If you’ve done all that and still haven’t received your voting email, please email the BMA Membership Team for assistance.
Non BMA members
You need to join the BMA first – by 19th March 2026 – to participate in this referendum and for any future votes. Join us!
If you live in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland but work in England and have not received your vote
Please contact [email protected] and we will swiftly assist you to get your email.
Why you should vote to reject the changes
Following the opening of a dispute by GP England on 1 October 2025, the Department of Health and Social Care announced changes to the process for amending 26/27 GP contracts. This moved annual discussions from negotiations firmly to a consultation, in which GPC England, your elected representative body for general practice, became one of a range of parties consulted on proposed changes by the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England.
After decades of established negotiating custom and practice, where negotiating parties have at least always tried to reach agreement, we remain extremely frustrated at the changes unilaterally imposed to the GMS and PMS contract ‘consultation’ process for 2026/27. As the elected representative body of the GP profession, GPC England has a duty and responsibility to represent the views of its members in a frank and honest manner.
Your elected representatives exist to shape contract changes that have a direct effect upon your working lives. The ultimate result of the Government’s new consultation process is that the voice of the profession has been significantly diluted.
It is therefore vital that GPs and GP Registrars use this opportunity to register their views of the contractual changes announced by the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England.
Why this contract impacts you
The future of NHS general practice services is relevant to all GPs and GP registrars in England working in NHS primary care settings. Whether you’re:
- already struggling to deliver your service contract
- struggling to keep up with the workload, regular unpaid overtime as a salaried GP and/or insufficient annual pay uplifts to match inflation
- cannot find enough / any work or cannot find work with fair working conditions as a salaried or locum GP
- having your training time ruined because you are regularly being asked to contribute to service delivery beyond your contractual requirements
- have reluctantly left NHS practise and work in the private sector because of the terms and conditions on offer.
We invite you to consider these contract changes from your own perspective as well as those of your colleagues and your patients.
It is from the investment in this contract that working conditions and pay are derived for all GPs and practice-employed staff. GP registrars may have a different training contract, but they will become qualified GPs in the not-too-distant future. Every missed opportunity to improve the GP contract means it will take us longer to get things back to a place where work and patient care are safe and of the standard patients deserve and practice staff are trained and want to deliver. Check out the BMA’s general practice pressures data analysis page to see how hard we work as a profession but how far away we currently are from safe practise and numbers of GPs.
Why you must be a BMA member in order to vote
The national GP contract was built on GPs standing together to get the best contract for them and their patients. Only by continuing to do that will the BMA GP branch of practice be able to access the best insights from across the profession in order to design and negotiate a substantially improved contract from 2027-28 and beyond.
Should any future statutory balloting and subsequent industrial action be ordered by the membership, strict trade union laws apply around who can vote and the membership data we hold for them.
We’ve let poor national policies divide us for too long. The collective lobbying and individual benefits BMA membership gives you cannot be found elsewhere, and it’s high time we strengthened that and secured the best possible future for the next generations of GPs and general practice staff.
Join by 19 March and you can still vote
As long as you join the BMA by 19th March 2026, you will be included in the referendum vote and will be sent an email with your e-voting link.
If you can’t join before then you are strongly encouraged to do so as soon as you can. General practice in England was built on unity, collaboration and looking out for each other regardless of contractual status to ensure patients always get the highest quality care. We are stronger together.
After the contract referendum
The outcome of this referendum will inform our collective next steps. The BMA and your LMCs will be disseminating further information to GPs / GP registrars throughout the coming weeks and months.
Upcoming contract webinars
We have emailed times / dates and links to forthcoming webinars and regular intervals to all GP and GP registrar members. LMCs also have this information. The list of scheduled dates for the webinars can also be found on the GP campaign page.
Our new contract guidance
We're producing new contract guidance ahead of the imposition of the changes
The BMA’s GPCE (GP Committee England) will produce and publish advice and guidance to help you consider how best to approach the contract changes. A series of ‘focus on’ documents will be produced to cover the main impacts of the changes.
We strongly encourage you to discuss this with your LMCs and neighbouring practices. It’s easy to insist GPs and practice staff absorb more and more, but the Government is responsible for making sure enough resources exist so that staff are practising safely and patients receive safe continuity of care.