Following extensive negotiations, GPC Wales has reached an agreement for the GMS contract with Welsh Government and NHS Wales. The final deal, covering the current 2025-26 financial year and elements of 2026-27, was announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care.
This year’s talks were much delayed due to budget uncertainty, with the initial government funding offer falling short of our costed requirements.
We threatened a formal contract dispute, and to begin preparations for a collective action ballot, prompting assurances from the Cabinet Secretary of a multi-year strategy and an improved funding settlement. On this basis, negotiations continued. The resulting outcome will see a £41.9m investment for 2025-26, and a guaranteed recurrent uplift of 5.8% to the contract for 2026-27. This provides practices with stability and certainty ahead of the Senedd Cymru elections in May 2026.
This agreement builds on the momentum from last year’s contract referendum, where you told Welsh Government that the status quo was not good enough. This resulted in an improved offer, albeit one with non-recurrent funding elements. The investment from this negotiation round is entirely recurrent - and would not have been possible without a mobilised profession.
A GMS Contract Implementation Group will meet to take forward the immediate outcomes, facilitate their implementation into the GMS contract and produce detailed guidance for practices. The contractual guidance will be published in due course alongside the Statement of Financial Entitlements on the Welsh Government website.
Furthermore, a range of working groups will be established to take forward the commitments for 2026-27 and beyond, including the ‘Community by Design’ transformation programme, and scoping a review of the global sum funding allocation formula. We will produced detailed advice for practices on these areas as work progresses over the coming months.
Financial changes
The table details the recurrent investment stemming from this contract agreement.
The 2025-26 funding is made on a recurrent basis, will be backdated to April 2025, and is equivalent to approx. 9% of the total contract value.
It includes a guaranteed 5.8% funding uplift from the start of the 2026-27 financial year, with the value of investment to be recurrent. It is intended to give practices the certainty to play a fundamental role in the wider NHS Wales transformation programme. This 2026-27 uplift is separate from the usual consideration by Welsh Government of the recommendations of the DDRB for 2026.
Staff pay uplifts for 2025/26
For 2025/26, funding has been provided for the sixth consecutive year to enable the same 4% uplift as recommended by the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body (DDRB) for GP pay to be awarded to all practice staff, in recognition of the valuable contribution of the wider practice team to the delivery of high-quality services.
Practices must use 2025/26 funding to give a 4% backdated pay rise to all staff employed on 1 April 2025, including those who have since left (and must make reasonable efforts to contact them). A self‑declaration is required. New staff employed after 1 April aren’t automatically covered, but practices should check any contractual clauses individually.
Read the joint letter on staff pay uplifts including guidance and declaration form.
Contractual changes (immediate)
| Area | Comment |
|---|---|
| Funding |
|
| QI and supplementary services |
|
| Data and Digital |
|
| SFE reimbursements |
|
| Partnership Premium |
|
| High risk and chronic disease patients |
|
| Additional Capacity Fund | Continuation of the previous 50:50 matched funding process for 25/26 |
QIF
The Quality and Improvement Framework (QIF) is made up of two domains, Access and Quality Improvement. The QIF points value has always applied to both access and quality improvement. We have agreed to uplift the points value by 4% to ensure value preservation. The QIF points value will therefore increase from £199 to £206.96 backdated to 1 April 2025.
There are no changes to the Quality Improvement projects for 2025-26, which were agreed earlier this year and already underway:
-
Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) - 70 points
-
Improving Cardiovascular Outcomes – 70 points
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Continuity of Care – 30 points
Transformation agenda
As per the Cabinet Secretary’s correspondence, the 5.8% ringfenced uplift to GMS contract is intended to “provide practices with the certainty needed to invest in the necessary resources to enable GPs to play a fundamental role in the transformation programme.”.
This refers to the ‘Community by Design’ transformation work being led by the Chief Medical Officer, with GPC Wales as a key partner. The ongoing Directed Collaborative Services discussions, which were part of the 2024/25 agreement, in theory will provide the practice-led structures for the resourced ‘Shift Left’ of services.
The funding is recurrent to GMS from April 2026, as outlined in the Statement of Financial Entitlements published in January 2026, and is estimated at around £30m, based on 5.8% of the total GMS contract value. The exact uplift figure will be calculated based on the GMS allocation at end March 2026
It has been clarified that this investment is additional and unrelated to any pay and expenses award in 2026-27, which would follow the consideration by the Welsh Government (pre- or post-2026 Senedd elections) of the DDRB’s recommendations.
The uplift is split equally across three elements:
Workforce Fund = £14m (including £4m from Additional Capacity Fund (AFC))
- 100% reimbursement for workforce, to be held by Health Boards with similar mechanism to ACF but without any matched requirement.
- Allocation will be based on raw population list size.
- Practices wishing to access the fund are invited to provide baseline staffing information to Health Boards by 31 January, with a follow-on workforce plan due 27 February 2025. Practices can apply for this fund throughout the year but applications received within these timescales will be prioritised from April. Tripartite guidance has been issued to all practices regarding the first step in this process, with further to follow.
Change Fund = £10m
- Funding to meet practice costs for transformation related to delivery of Directed Collaborative Services. To be held by Health boards with claiming mechanism.
Allocation will be based on raw population list size.
Resilience Fund = £10m
- This will be invested directly into the Global Sum and distributed through the GSum Allocation formula.
We acknowledge concerns that funding held by Health Boards may be in danger of being reallocated to other budget lines beyond GMS. As a result, we have agreed a mechanism for a GMS Residual payment. Any underspend from either Workforce or Change funds at a defined point in the year will be paid out to practices (based on raw list size redistribution) within that Health Board at the conclusion of the financial year.
Commitments ahead for 26-27
We have made a number of commitments that will be progressed via working groups, outlined in Table 3. The outputs of these groups would be brought back to the Contract Reform Group or will inform future negotiations. These are:
| Area | Comment |
|---|---|
| Access | Review the future of access standards ahead of potential implementation from Apr 2026. |
| Funding | Scoping and commissioning review of the Global Sum Allocation Formula. |
| QI and supplementary services |
|
| Data and digital | Consider technical and safety implications of wider NHS Wales App functionality: authorised access, test results in summary care record, e-triage, non-urgent appointment booking. |
| Dispensing | Continue dispensing reform working group with intent to produce recommendations to inform 2027-28 negotiations. |
| High risk and chronic disease patients | Explore mainstreaming All Wales Diabetes Prevention Programme from Apr 2026 |
| Premises |
|
| Vaccinations and immunisations | Extended scoping work with SSP/WG policy team to uprate Item of Service fees. |
| Protected Learning Time | Recommend consistent funding approach across all HBs |