Labour’s plan to ‘nationalise’ GPs would cost more than £7bn

A plan by the Labour Party to effectively nationalise GPs would cost more than £7 billion, internal Department of Health analysis suggests.

Wes Streeting, the Shadow Health Secretary, said the party would “tear up” the GP contract and make family doctors salaried NHS employees.

GPs are funded partly by the NHS contract, which is linked to the number of patients on their practice list, but they also receive extra money by hitting targets or undertaking private work. 

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has backed the plan to overhaul the GP model. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph Sir Keir said using family doctors as the single “front door” to the NHS was no longer viable.

“It’s time for us to think about a new, sustainable system, one that allows GPs to focus on caring for patients rather than the admin that comes with effectively running a small business,” Sir Keir said.

He added: “As GPs retire and those contracts are handed back, I want to phase in a new system that sees GPs fairly rewarded within the NHS, working much more closely with other parts of the system.”

'The policy is incoherent'

But internal analysis by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), seen by The Telegraph, estimates the plan could cost the taxpayer more than £7 billion.

To bring some GPs onto salaries comparable to NHS hospital doctors it could cost around £670 million per year, according to the analysis. 

The analysis, based on figures from 2019 which has not been independently verified, also suggests buying out GP-owned premises would cost around £7 billion. 

A Whitehall source said: “Labour’s new plan for primary care is a proposal for an expensive top-down reorganisation that is uncosted and unfunded.

“The policy is totally incoherent. Buying an expensive GP premises off the partner does nothing to make it easier to book appointments.”