College letter to The Times on tax rises

The RCGP has written to The Times in response to reports of tax rises for GP partnerships operating as LLPs.

Sir - at the RCGP’s recent annual conference, I recounted something a GP approaching retirement told me. As in practices across the country, her team is working flat out as patient need for care soars, and this has been exacerbated by one GP recently leaving. But the GP partners have made the tough decision not to replace this GP, let alone try to recruit more that they desperately need. The reason? The hike in national insurance contributions in last year’s Budget.

It therefore filled me with dread to read your report [Tax raid on solicitors and GPs as Rachel Reeves targets wealthy, 22 October] that even more financial pain is expected to hit GP partnerships operating as LLPs, which are already under intense pressure.

Last year’s Darzi report praised general practice for its ability to innovate for patients and for having the most financial discipline in the NHS, largely down to the partnership model by which it operates. Yet we are struggling to encourage more GPs to become partners. The Chancellor should be supporting this model to thrive by exempting GP partnerships from national insurance and tax increases, as other NHS services are, not driving it into the ground. It is patients who will lose out.

Professor Kamila Hawthorne
Chair, Royal College of GPs London, NW1

Further information

RCGP press office: 0203 188 7659
press@rcgp.org.uk

Notes to editors

The Royal College of General Practitioners is a network of more than 54,000 family doctors working to improve care for patients. We work to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general medical practice and act as the voice of GPs on education, training, research and clinical standards.