DDRB recommendations: Scottish GP Committee reaction
Below is a direct excerpt from BMA Scotland’s own blog. You can view the article directly here.
I promise, one day I will write a blog that is purely upbeat and optimistic. However, and with regret, not today.
That is because yesterday the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Renumeration (mainly referred to as the DDRB) published its report with a recommendation for a 4% uplift for most doctors, including contractor and salaried GPs. You can read more in this overall reaction from Scottish Council Chair Dr Iain Kennedy. The report came a day after inflation as per the RPI measure climbed to 4.5% for April 2025, so essentially making this a real terms pay cut for most.
After repeated years of deeply unsatisfactory pay recommendations, the DDRB had been reformed with the hope it would produce something better than recent recommendations. Indeed, the DDRB was left with the clear message from the profession that it was on its last chance and we expected it to show far more independence and make recommendations needed to restore doctor pay. In my view it is abundantly clear from this year’s recommendation that it has failed in this regard and each BMA branch of practice in each nation will now no doubt be considering the consequences for future participation in this process.
We now await a substantive Scottish Government response and we will continue our already open dialogue. In contrast, Governments in the other nations have already accepted the recommendations. But the Scottish Government has, in a move we may regard with wary optimism, not decided its course of action yet. That gives Ministers here the opportunity to go over and above the recommendation, do better than elsewhere in the UK and try to address the fact that Scottish GP partners are earning significantly less (whilst being taxed more) than their English counterparts. As much as we feel we lose candidates to overseas, it is far easier to move across the border.
The Scottish Government also have the opportunity to address the significant pay award disparity awarded last year, with the GP pay award 5% lower than our consultant and resident colleagues. Failure for this to be addressed would simply compound the inequity forever more and demonstrates that warm words to our profession are not backed by action. To be clear, this absolutely has to be about levelling up – we are talking about the awards finally meaning good deals for ALL parts of the profession.
Whatever the result of the Scottish Government’s decision, we will continue our campaign for full funding restoration. Finally dealing with the £290 million shortfall surgeries face, created from years of neglect, would lift the income of many GPs, nurses and administrative staff and create new job opportunities across the nation. It is the denigration of our core resource that lies behind the “access issues” that frustrate many patients and inflames the burnout of our profession. The BMA’s Scottish GP Committee are unequivocal: the days of GPs struggling to continue to do more and more for less and less support must stop.
We are steadfast in our resolve to improve the support for our profession. Formal dispute with Government looks almost inevitable at this stage given the direction of travel. If this course continues we will be coming to you all for your support in a ballot of the profession on taking the kind of action that will be needed to stand up for GPs and the patients we care for.
None of us wish to disrupt the service we so deeply care for and aim to protect, often at our personal expense. However, the Scottish Government’s failure to back their warm rhetoric with real resource has to be confronted if we are to preserve and then deliver a better future for General Practice in Scotland. Let us remember why we are so angry. We have a service and profession that offers so much to so many. By working together, we will protect its future and that of the NHS in Scotland for generations to come.
Dr Iain Morrison is Chair of BMA Scotland’s GP Committee
