The 2026/27 GP Contract makes clear that requests identified by practices as clinically urgent should be responded to on the same day. This builds on NHS England’s Medium Term Planning Framework, which set an expectation that urgent appointments should be delivered on the same day so that patients with urgent needs are prioritised.

We recognise that practices will need the right capacity and flexibility to deliver this. That is why we are investing an additional £601 million in general practices (GPs) in 2026/27, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to approximately £14 billion. This builds on the £1.1 billion increase in 2025/26, the largest uplift in over a decade. Since October 2024 we have recruited 2,000 more GPs. We now have the highest number of GPs by headcount since 2015. The 2026/27 contract also introduces a practice-level GP reimbursement scheme, backed by £292 million of ringfenced funding, to help practices recruit more GPs or expand sessions.

This will support practices to manage demand, improve access for patients, strengthen GP employment, and continue to improve patient satisfaction.

Same-day appointment levels have remained broadly steady. In May 2026, 44.9% of appointments were booked and attended on the same day, up 0.3% from April 2026 and 0.7% from May 2025. This represents approximately 13 million appointments taking place on the day of booking.

The Department and NHS England considered the potential risks, benefits, and wider impact of the policy changes as part of standard policy-development processes and Equalities Impact Assessments.

No immediate negative impacts have been identified from these policies. If any are identified at a later stage, the Department will consider and review them. The changes are intended to improve access to general practices (GPs), build workforce capacity, and strengthen prevention. They include measures to increase GP capacity, including a new practice-level GP reimbursement scheme and greater flexibility to recruit GPs through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme.

We are routinely collecting data on workforce, patient access, and service use to inform the assessment of impacts.

Where a patient presents with a clinically urgent need, it is for the general practitioner to determine the appropriate course of action, and the patient should receive a clinically appropriate response on the same day. Where a request is ‘dealt with’, this does not always mean a same‑day appointment, but that the patient has received an appropriate clinical response. This could include advice, an appointment, including one that delivers continuity of care, or signposting to another suitable service, depending on the patient’s needs.

The Government recognises that continuity of care plays an important role in patient experience and outcomes, particularly for those with ongoing health challenges. As part of the 2026/27 contract, we have made it a core requirement for primary care networks to identify and prioritise cohorts for continuity of care using risk stratification tools as part of their core activities. This will make continuity a core expectation within primary care and support future work to embed more meaningful continuity models in subsequent contract reform.

The Department and NHS England considered the potential impacts of expanding Advice and Guidance (A&G) as part of the policy development process, including through clinical input, established governance arrangements, and equalities considerations. A&G is intended to support timely clinical decision‑making and ensure patients are directed to the most appropriate care. National guidance is in place to support its safe and consistent use, and the use of A&G does not change existing clinical accountability or patient safety arrangements.

The contract does not change the clinical threshold for referral to specialist care. General practitioners (GPs) should continue to make a clinical decision to refer for specialist care where that is in the patient’s best interests, and to request specialist advice where it is needed. GPs retain responsibility for referral decisions, and this model supports, and does not replace, clinical judgement.

The 2026/27 GP Contract embeds the previous A&G enhanced service funding into core practice funding. Following near universal uptake of the A&G Enhanced Service in 2025/26, the focus for 2026/27 is on stability and simplicity. Embedding the specialist advice model within the core contract recognises its role in routine clinical practice, removes annual signups, and provides more predictable funding while supporting consistent patient pathways.

General practices (GPs) are valued independent contractors who provide £14 billion worth of National Health Services. Every year we consult with the profession about what services GPs provide, and the money providers are entitled to in return under their contract, taking account of the cost of delivering services.

In early 2026, we concluded the 2026/27 GP Contract consultation. This year we expanded the consultation to engage with wider stakeholders, and these were the General Practitioners Committee England, the Royal College of General Practitioners, National Voices, the Institute of General Practice Management, Healthwatch England, NHS Confederation, now NHS Alliance following its merge with NHS Providers, and the National Association of Primary Care. The feedback we received from stakeholders across the system has been constructive and comprehensive, enabling us to refine proposals and address concerns while developing the final contract package.

We are investing £601 million in GPs in 2026/27, bringing the total spend on the GP Contract to £14 billion. This builds on last year’s £1.1 billion of investment. This uplift represents a 4.5% cash increase, or 2.2% real terms increase, and includes the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration recommended pay increase of 3.5%.

The Government is committed to improving access to general practices (GPs) by increasing capacity and making it easier for patients to contact their surgery. The changes made to online consultation systems in October 2024 are supporting greater parity across booking routes, reducing pressure on busy phone lines, and ensuring patients have a consistent and reliable way to request care.

The Office for National Statistics’ Health Insight Survey for May 2026 shows that 76.5% of patients reported it was easy to contact their GP, up from 60.9% in July 2024, an increase of nearly 16%

To support practices, we are investing an additional £601 million in GPs in 2026/27, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to approximately £14 billion. This builds on the £1.1 billion increase in 2025/26, the largest uplift in over a decade. Since October 2024 we have recruited 2,000 more GPs. We now have the highest number of GPs by headcount since 2015. The 2026/27 contract also introduces a practice-level GP reimbursement scheme, backed by £292 million, to help practices recruit more GPs or expand sessions

Data collected through General Practice Appointment Data provides insight into the volume of online consultation submissions received by practices. In May 2026, practices received 2.1 million more online consultation submissions than in May 2025, a 36.4% year-on-year increase. However, submissions were 7.2% lower than in April 2026, following a larger month-on-month decrease in April of 14.6%, equivalent to 1.5 million fewer submissions.

As a result, GPs have delivered 12.7 million additional appointments to patients compared with the previous year. This data is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/appointments-in-general-practice/may-2026

The 2025/26 GP Contract has been updated to give patients the right to access help electronically, including requesting appointments, throughout the duration of core practice hours.

All practices in England are required to offer online and video consultation tools, secure electronic communication methods, and online facilities to provide and update personal information.

Practices are required to offer patients an appropriate response on the day they contact the practice, or the next day if they contact the practice in the afternoon, according to the urgency of their clinical needs and other circumstances. An appropriate response could, for example, involve inviting the patient to an appointment, providing appropriate advice or care by another method, signposting to the patient to appropriate services, or communicating with the patient to request more information.

On 20 December 2024, we announced a proposed £889 million uplift for general practice (GP) in 2025/26 and set out the proposed areas of reform which will help us to deliver on our commitments. This is the largest uplift to GP funding in years and means we are reversing the recent trend with a rising share of total National Health Service resources going to GPs.

Details on how funding will be allocated is subject to the ongoing GP Contract consultation with the General Practitioners Committee England, and will be announced ahead of April.

We have made necessary decisions to fix the foundations of the public finances in the Autumn Budget. Resource spending for the Department will be £22.6 billion more in 2025/26 than in 2023/24, as part of the Spending Review settlement. The employers’ National Insurance contribution (NIC) rise will be implemented in April 2025.

The definition of who is in scope is based on the Office for National Statistics classification of the entity paying employer NICs. This applies to employees who are directly employed by the public sector, but not, for example, where services are contracted out. Any other approach would result in differential treatment between private sector employers. General practices (GPs) are independent contractors and do not fall within this remit. This is consistent with the approach taken by previous Governments.

We recently announced a proposed funding uplift to the GP contract for 2025/26 of £889 million, representing a 7.2% cash growth, estimated at approximately 4.8% real terms growth. This is the largest uplift to GP funding since the beginning of the five-year framework and means we are reversing the recent trend with a rising share of total National Health Service resources going to GPs. We are currently consulting the profession on the annual GP contract.