On 1st August 2024, General Practice in England entered a period of GP collective action. More than 8,500 GPs in England took part in a ballot run by the British Medical Association; 98.3% voted in favour of taking part in collective action.

Collective action is not the same as industrial action but means that some GPs may stop or reduce certain work. Historically, practices have "over worked": that is, they have worked above and beyond their contracts to keep up with patient demand. Collective action will see this "over work" reduce or stop.

General Practice funding is less than £108 per patient per year, this equates to at most 2-3 contacts per year per patient, compared to the cost of an outpatient appointment estimated to start at £130-£400, there is something about demand and reasonable expectation.  

The £108 per patient, is to run practice premises and employ staff, this is not enough for GPs to employ enough staff to give patients the care they deserve.  The financial situation is unsustainable, with many Practices having to shut, because they cannot afford to keep going

Despite warning the Government that we’re being forced to do more with less, General Practice has not been given the funding it needs to handle growing pressures.

Here at St Martins, the Appointment Hub system that we introduced in September 2023 brought our daily workload within our acceptable safe limits. However, we continue to feel workload pressures from:

• The number of patients who are waiting to book an appointment with us: we are unable to meet patient demand
• increasing administration often caused by pressures in other parts of the health and care system which takes our time and attention away from our patients and from doing the things that will make a difference to their wellbeing.

We have joined Collective Action as we believe that General Practice joining with one voice, may prompt the new Government to hear us.

1. We will start declining to carry out work that we are not contracted to do, even when in the past we have done it on the grounds that it may be more convenient for patients.
   Hospital consultants frequently asked us to do work on their behalf. However we are not funded to do such work, neither are we required to do by the terms of our NHS contract.
   Such work includes carrying out blood tests & other tests which the consultant has requested & the communciation of results for tests which werer ordered by consultants. The principle is: the doctor that orders the test should both administer the test (or their immediate team should) and follow-up the results of that test with the patient.

2. We are requested to complete unecessarily long forms in order to make a referral. We will naturally continue to provide all the necessary clinical information that is necessary.
3. When the GP decides a referral is required then we will start ensuring that the referral is accepted. (Increasingly, and presumably to alleviate cost & workload pressures, hospitals are on occasion not accepting the GP referral but instead returning it to us with some advice & guidance for the patient to continue to treated by the GP/practice. We will no longer accept such advice & guidance as a response to our referral).

Opening hours unchanged, we are open as usual 

Appointments

prescriptions

Diagnosis & referrals

more more more

We are not "on strike"

more more more

“ We members of the patient group think  that our GP services have been seriously underfunded over the last few years and understand the  need to take action to put pressure on the government to address this. We want to see GP practices and  the wide range of services they provide  properly funded . We also want to see all staff in the practice properly paid. 

We have looked at the actions St Martins proposes to take. We  are pleased that unlike other practices they do not plan to limit daily  patient numbers. We think the actions they are taking actually improve efficiency and support clinical best practice. We support the practice in taking the collective action they propose.”

The St Martins patient Group met on 23/9/24 and discussed Collective Action.

Of 7 patients present,  6 were in favour of the Collective Actions that we propose to do & they wrote this statement