Pay crisis in general practice nursing: government must change funding model now

General practice nursing staff are being taken for granted when it comes to their pay.

A new RCN survey of nursing staff working in general practice has revealed that 3 in 10 of those directly employed by a general practice in England received no pay rise in the last year.

Nearly half received less than the 6% explicitly provided by the Department of Health and Social Care to "enable practices to uplift GP and staff pay".

The UK government must step up and show it values the staff who are central to ambitions to move care out of hospitals and into the community.

Nursing staff working in primary care across the UK need to see funds ringfenced for pay. This must, at minimum, reflect NHS pay, terms and conditions.

When announcing funds for the 6% increase last year, the government said the additional funding was GP staff's “first meaningful pay rise in years”.

But many have not received the promised increase. Of those in England directly employed by their practice, who received a pay award of less than 6%, a third said their employer had not provided a reason, while 1 in 10 said their employer told them they were not required to pass on funding to nursing staff.

The UK government says it wants to move care from hospital into the community. However, our survey found one of the main reasons for staff experiencing a fall in pay was moving from secondary to primary care.

Executive Director of RCN England Patricia Marquis said: “Nursing staff in general practice work at the front door of the NHS and are central to its success, but they are being repeatedly failed by the government when it comes to their pay.

“While the government has made it clear that it wants to move more care into the community, it is failing to invest in those tasked with making it happen.

“An understaffed workforce is already struggling to recruit and retain people to the profession needed to deliver high-quality care to a growing number of patients. The government must now change the funding model for general practice and ringfence money for staff.”

GP nursing staff funding differs across the UK. In England, where there are around 24,000 GP nursing staff, only a fifth of staff employed directly by their practice received the 6% pay rise promised by the UK government.

In Scotland, despite a 5.5% pay increase being funded centrally, polling suggests discrepancies in how this has been distributed. We’ve written to the Scottish Government to seek clarity.

In Wales, an improved offer was put forward by the Welsh government in January 2025, which the BMA has accepted. The 6% pay increase should be applied after any statutory increase in national minimum or living wage has been added.

In Northern Ireland, no formal pay award has been announced for GP nursing staff for 2024-25.

Public polling undertaken for the RCN shows 78% of people regularly use general practice services, but more than half did not think their general practice had enough capacity.