Last year GP partners in Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly in favour of collective action, 98.7% of those who voted said they were willing to take collective action.
We want to update you on the significant progress NIGPC has secured following recent committee meetings and sustained, determined negotiations with the Department of Health and the Health Minister.
After robust discussions, and in light of the proposals outlined below, we have agreed to resume negotiations with the Department of Health for the 2026–2027 contract and to explore neighbourhood model development — a step made possible only through the pressure and unity shown by GPs across Northern Ireland.
Thanks to the collective strength you have demonstrated throughout this period, we have now reached a point where we can move forward.
Access proposals suspended
One of our asks to get us back to the table was the removal of the new nine unagreed access proposals for 2025/2026. These will now be suspended for 2025/2026 and practices will not have to submit evidence against these nine targets in 2025/2026.
Any additional access requirements for 2026/2027 will be negotiated, so they will actually work in general practice.
The £1m funding allocated to help improve access in 2025/2026 will not be withdrawn from practices.
Changes to global sum funding
The Department and minister are proposing the following:
Amending practice data and global sum to reflect current census information, i.e. from 2001 to 2021 levels. A similar exercise has already taken place in the other nations. It is necessary to update practice global sums to reflect your current practice demographics. If this had been done within the current global sum envelope it would have resulted in some practices receiving a reduction and others receiving an increase.
An additional £5.2m will be added to the global sum envelope to ensure that all practices that would otherwise have seen a reduction are maintained at their current baseline, therefore due to this additional funding, no practice will experience a decrease. Any practice that benefits from demographic change will retain that benefit.
In addition, the Department will allocate £8.1m funding to be put directly to all practices global sum on a practice’s 2026/2027 weighted list size basis and you will see the uplift in your 2026/2027 monthly global sum. All practices will receive an uplift, although levels will vary depending on your weighted list and correction factors will be retained.
Crucially, this investment is recurrent and will be subject to DDRB in the future. This is a total uplift to global sum for stabilisation of general practice by £13.3m without any current additional ask.
Collective action
To be clear we remain in dispute for the 2025/2026 contract and you should continue with the steps you have taken for collective action. The contract was imposed on us this year, and that is unacceptable.
You have shown through your response to the ballot for collective action and the subsequent action that you undertook, shows your commitment to general practice and your willingness to act to safeguard and improve it. We are still prepared to withdraw from negotiations and escalate our action as necessary if future negotiations are unproductive.
Many of the measures you have been undertaking as part of collective action were UNFUNDED, therefore you should not resume those tasks.
#GPsAreOnYourSide
To strengthen public support for general practice , we encourage GPs to display posters in their surgeries and use the graphics provided for your own social media platforms. These materials are designed to highlight the challenges faced by general practice and demonstrate the collective efforts being made to ensure quality healthcare for all. By engaging patients and the wider community, we aim to foster greater understanding and advocacy for the changes we urgently need.
- Download poster 1
- Download poster 2
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- Download poster 4
- Download poster 5
- Download poster 6
- Download poster 7
- Download social media graphic 1
- Download social media graphic 2
- Download social media graphic 3
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- Download social media graphic 6
Background and context
In May, GPs in Northern Ireland were asked in a ballot if they rejected or accepted the contract on offer from the Department of Health. 99.6% of those who voted indicated that they rejected the offer. The health minister subsequently said that negotiations were concluded and he moved to impose the contract.
When we began negotiations for the 2025-2026 contract, the negotiating team made it clear from the first meeting there were several ‘key asks’ in terms of what we believed was needed from this year’s contract agreement to stabilise and secure the future of general practice in Northern Ireland:
- An increase of £80million into core funding for general practice
- A fully funded indemnity solution for all GPs in Northern Ireland
- Funding to cover the increased costs of Employers National Insurance Contributions.
All of these are essential for GPs who are facing rising costs and increasing demand, putting additional pressure on an already stressed workforce. GPs have faced relentless criticism that patients are unable to see their GP or get an appointment, despite the Department’s own data showing this is not the case; 200,000 appointments are delivered every week, that is 10% of the population seeing their GP every week. Annually in Northern Ireland there are just over 750,000 attendances at A&E, so it is clear the huge volume of work GPs are undertaking for a fraction of the health budget.
An increase of £80 million into core funding represents about 1% of the overall health budget in Northern Ireland. It will help stabilise general practice but will also show that the Department of Health values the contribution of general practitioners. Currently general practice receives only 5.4% of the health budget despite the huge workload GPs undertake.