General practitioners committee UK overview

The GPC (general practitioners committee) is the only body which represents all GPs in the UK. It deals with all matters affecting NHS GPs, regardless of BMA membership.

Location: UK
Audience: GPs
Updated: Monday 2 December 2024
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GPC newsletter

For news, opinion and updates from GPC UK, read the latest newsletter.

General practice across the UK is facing chronic underfunding and a drive to replace GPs with workforce trained to a lower standard. We have a UK wide crisis, and each nation faces the same challenges of workforce, workload and demand and massive funding gaps. These issues manifest themselves slightly differently in each nation but remain the core challenges to be addressed.

Our priorities

Crisis in general practice

GPs and practices across the four nations are still experiencing unprecedented pressure following COVID-19  with declining GP numbers, rising demand and workload pressures, recruitment and retention issues, the major scale of the NHS backlog and knock-on effects for patients. GPCUK are encouraging practices to adhere to safe working guidance in their nation, to help practices prioritise their limited capacity to deliver safe, high-quality care. 

Read about the pressures general practice is under across the UK.

Read the safe working guidance:

GP pensions and annual allowance

The BMA’s Pensions Committee represents all BMA members across the UK and has carried out extensive lobbying on pension taxation, which resulted in positive changes to annual allowance and lifetime allowance in the Spring 2023 budget. The committee continues to monitor the situation and highlight the detrimental impact that re-introducing or reforming pension tax may have on doctors.   

The pension pages on the BMA website offer information and guidance for GPs and the BMA’s Pensions Department are available to offer support to members at [email protected]

Controlling workload in general practice

We are proposing a workload control strategy to enable general practice to improve quality and safety, publicise reasonable safe workload limits and provide practices with practical tools to control workload.

Controlling workload in general practice strategy

See also our sessional GP overtime guidance.

GPC UK

GPC UK consists of six component committees: GPC England, GPC Scotland, GPC Wales, Northern Ireland GPC, Sessional GPs committee and GP Registrars committee. These committees have delegated responsibility for taking forward much of the work on behalf of GPs across the UK, including negotiations with the respective governments.

 

Our people

Chair: Katie Bramall-Stainer 
Deputy Chair: Frances O’Hagan 

Executive team:
Iain Morrison, chair of GPC Scotland
Gareth Oelmann, chair of GPC Wales
Mark Steggles, chair of Sessional GPs 
Victoria McKay, co-chair of GP Registrars 

 

Members

Non-voting members: Ex officio

President, Dr Mary McCarthy 
Chair of the representative body, Latifa Patel
Chair of council, Philip Banfield
Deputy Chair of council, Emma Runswick
Treasurer, Trevor Pickersgill

Voting Members: Ex officio

Chair of the UK LMC conference, Matt Mayer
Deputy chair of the UK LMC conference, Alastair Taylor


Elected by the annual representative meeting 2024

England 
Samuel Parker 
Surendra Kumar 
Lucy-Jane Davis 
Danielle McSeveney 
Mark Coley 
Amy Small 
Tilna Tilakkumar

Scotland
Stuart Blake

Wales
Om Aggarwal

Northern Ireland
Andrew Wilson

Elected by the UK LMC conference

Andrew Buist 
David Wrigley
Manu Agarwal 
Simon Minkoff
Gerard McHale 
Anwar Tufail

Members (continued)

Voting nominees of other bodies

Medical Women’s Federation
Caroline Delves

Medical Practitioners' Union (two representatives)
Jackie Applebee
Tom Riddington

British International Doctors Association
Rakesh Sharma

Under-represented groups (voting members)

Prison doctors
Bethan Roberts

GP within first five years post CCT
Caroline Rodgers

Non-voting nominees of other bodies:

Royal College of General Practitioners - Victoria Tzortziou-Brown and Saqib Anwar

 

Members (continued)

Wales
Gareth Oelmann
Ian Harris 
Sara Bodey 


England
Katie Bramall-Stainer
Samira Anane
Julius Parker 


Scotland
Iain Morrison 
Al Miles 
Chris Black 


Northern Ireland
Frances O’Hagan
Ciaran Mullan
Conor Moore


Sessional GPs
Mark Steggles
Krishan Aggarwal
Veno Suri


GP Registrars
Victoria McKay
Cheska Ball         
Esizaze Ozekhome-Mike


Policy Groups 
Policy Lead for Representation – Rachel Ali
Policy Lead for Education and Training – Sarah Matthews
Equalities Champion – Lucy-Jane Davies

Policy groups

GPC UK's policy groups focus on specific workstreams, and deliver work on behalf of GPC UK. You can find out more about our policy groups and their work below.

Representation
The representation policy group leads on all matters related to representation of GPs in the BMA, democratic accountability, representation of GP principals, sessional GPs and GP trainees in GPC structures and representation of historically marginalised groups in GPC structures include but not limited to female GPs, GPs from ethnic minority backgrounds and disabled GPs.
Contact us: [email protected]

Education and training
The Education and training policy group leads on all education and training issues of relevance to the general practice workforce.
Contact us: [email protected]

Our meetings

The UK GPC meets twice a year to discuss the latest issues facing general practice. These meetings are open to GPC members, however, the committee also welcomes observers from LMCs (local medical committees).

LMCs interested in sending an observer to a GPC meeting should contact the GPC office to arrange a suitable date. All travel and other expenses for LMC observers must be met by the relevant LMC. A maximum of three LMC observers may attend any one meeting.

Meeting dates:

  • Thursday 17 October 2024
  • Thursday 6 March 2025

All meetings take place from 10am to 5pm either virtually or at:

BMA House
Tavistock Square
London
WC1H 9JP

For more information about GPC meetings, email [email protected]

 

How to join

There are many advantages to becoming involved in our committees. You can actively influence BMA policy-making and negotiations, represent your colleagues' voices and develop your leadership skills. 

Each committee has a few routes to becoming an elected member. In the case of GPC UK, these are: 

Regional elections
  • Seats/term - every year, a third of the 43 UK regions elect a representative for a three-session term.
  • Timeline - elections are usually held in February or March.
  • Eligibility - all GPs who BMA members are eligible to stand if they live or work in the relevant regions. All GPs can vote in this election.
LMC UK conference elections
  • Seats/term - every year, seven delegates of the LMC conference are elected to GPC UK for a one-session term.
  • Timeline - elections are held at the LMC conference in May.
  • Eligibility - only LMC conference delegates can stand and vote in this election.
ARM elections
  • Seats/term - every year, elections for 10 seats on GPC UK take place for a one-session term.
  • Timeline - the nomination period opens a month before ARM, and voting closes a few days after ARM.
  • Eligibility - all UK GPs BMA members can stand for election but only ARM delegates can vote.

The election section below is kept up to date with details about any running elections, so make sure you keep checking it throughout the year.  

Elections

Elections to the GPC are now closed.

Get in touch

If you are interested in finding out more about the work of GPC, email [email protected]

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Develop your skills as a committee member

Take part in one of our free courses designed to give you the right skills to:

  • break down equality and inclusion bias (CPD-accredited)
  • value difference and inclusivity
  • live our BMA behaviour principles.
Find out more
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Women at the BMA

The BMA is working to meet the challenges that women face in the medical profession.

Stand for a BMA committee and be part of this change.

Find out more

Resources

  • Local medical committees (bma.org.uk)