To think this budget will finish us off

[BurnoutGP]

I am a GP Partner of over 20 years. I am now senior partner for the last few years. We have seen year on year below inflation funding increase. With an explosion in demand and massive shift of work from secondary care. We have issues wirh recruitment.
Our partner income is shrinking year on year. We are now always overdrawn and this gets worse every month.
We just cannot soak up the MLW and NI without adequate resource uplift.
I think we will be done. I'm so very tired of the constant battle and the demand and anger while working "part time" 60hr weeks.
We will have to hand back our contract. And we wont be the only one. That will leave one surviving practice in my area.
I'm done.

Ah yes - I had forgotten the horrors of PFI. So in fact Blair conformed to the Labour Economics Plan of paying the present from future hoped for money.

While the Tories just dish out tax revenues willy nilly on contracts for undelivered infrastructure and unusable PPE.

Keir is still impressively bad, considering he’s been in for just over three months. Taylor Swift and clothing freebies and ordinary people get taxed like this? The man has no clue.

Bit random but maybe the government shouldn't be such greedy bs and put more money into this

Partners are paid from profits. They don’t take a salary.

If you pay for them.

I can also get an appointment/phone call with a dr at a time of my choosing when I pay. But god for it we suggest paying for the dear old NHS

Yes I agree, terrible budget for the economy and therefore for the whole country. As a business owner we will be cutting back on staff and wages (currently employ about 100 people). We will be forced to use AI more. Might also have to put prices up. Not great for 'working people' or growing the economy.

Minimum wage has gone up 40% from 2020 to 2025.

what has inflation done? Salaries should go up, you shouldn’t be getting paid the same as you were 5, 10, 20 yrs ago.

GPs have been private businesses since the start of the NHS. They were private businesses before that too.

Minimum wage has gone up 40% from 2020 to 2025.

Just highlights how disgraceful it was in 2020.

I don't know why people complain about minimum wage going up just because the more skilled people don't get paid enough. It's not a race to the bottom. If you don't earn enough then join a union and fight for higher pay. In countries where wages are high then people can actually go and do stuff on their day off and the cafes etc do really well. It all feeds back in. With this GP practice, maybe it's more that they need to fund Doctors properly rather than keeping everyone else poor. Surely this higher NI will help fund better social care which is sorely needed.

@rainingsnoring there are still labour shortages, not as high as it was but still significant.

Yes! Finally it seems liveable.

I don't know why people complain about minimum wage going up just because the more skilled people don't get paid enough.

Do people think if NLW was stagnant that their wages would increase or would they just feel more comfortable with their stagnant wages because some earn less?

If it were liveable you wouldn’t need any other benefits if you had a full time job on NMW.

I run a manufacturing business, so understand perfectly well thanks!

Why a GPs practice needs to make a profit is the question?

You do know that investment in development of new products and services is deductible before profit, profit is what's left when everything and everyone is paid.

You only pay tax on profit, not turnover.

Er. Diagnosing cancer with the benefit of a CT scan in secondary care when the patient has been referred to you with possible cancer by a GP is hardly groundbreaking is it.
In any case, you have completely missed the point. There is certainly no bunting hung out for the GP either. However, it is a much greater challenge to pick out really sick patients from a very long list of not particularly sick patients, without the benefit of a team and multiple investigations that are available in hospital.

Yes I agree, terrible budget for the economy and therefore for the whole country. As a business owner we will be cutting back on staff and wages (currently employ about 100 people). We will be forced to use AI more. Might also have to put prices up. Not great for 'working people' or growing the economy.

What tax hikes would you have imposed to raise money & how would they grow the economy?

In some sectors. I am looking at the overall trend, as explained, and it does not look encouraging.

You couldn't screengrab on an NHS computer, for "medical record security". Until recently, at least, Gmail etc on those systems was blocked due to "security risks". As demonstrated here, these security measures were about 10 years out of date.

I do wherever I can. I'm waiting for my tax relief and happy to opt out of the NHS entirely when it comes and when private A&E facilities are introduced.

Chatting to a colleague whose DH is a solicitor. They will be increasing their hourly rates with immediate effect.

When staff across the country are made redundant due to increasing employer costs, they are likely to stop paying tax and NI and start receiving benefits. How does that extrapolate to an overall increase in revenue for the government?

This budget is not a caring people centred budget, it's a hard socialist budget akin to what almost destroyed the UK in the 70s., which I remember well.

And what about the impact of higher national insurance on businesses? That’s hardly going to be good is it? Or the impact on the farming community? Yesterday’s budget was awful for farmers and will probably mean loads of farmers decide to chuck in the towel or sell off parts of their land which will just be snapped up by rich people and built on. We still need to be able to grow food. We can’t just import everything. This government is sriven more by ideology than common sense.

Sorry, I completely disagree with you @doginabowtie !!

I am a therapist, and have worked for the NHS. Even alongside GPs themselves. My job is diary-based, and theirs should be too. Working people cannot access appointments. We should not have to take a day off work to wait for a doctor to call us when they are ready. I can’t accept a phone call appointment between 12 & 5pm during work hours either because I could be in session with a client.
So alike previous pp, my diary is like jenga too, while I see people from this country offering a service and paying taxes!

I don’t feel I should have to go private and pay £60+ just to access a GP appointment!! It’s ridiculous. We used to have booked GP appointments previously and these were face to face. I think GPs take the piss. One called me at 8pm at night and didn’t even seem that bothered by the fact that I was expecting their call earlier on in the day.

I fully appreciate that their job is hard, and they’re busy, however post-COVID, the level of care is shocking. And a lot of them hide behind telephone appointments because it’s more convenient for them. They need to get back to appointment based face to face appointments!

Can your business not charge more per consultation so that you can meet your expenses?
I assume that you have already cut fat from your out goings.

Watch the numbers of job vacancies plummet and businesses go under because they can’t afford it. Oh and prices go up in response as well.

You're newly qualified so you'll start at the bottom but your salary will increase and you'll also rise up the banding as you gain more experience. Your earning potential is pretty decent. Public sector starting salaries are not never high, what did you expect? Think about where you will be in 5 years compared to the person working at Aldi.
And I'm talking as a band 7 who's chosen to stay at this grade but there have certainly been opportunities to go up to band 8 should i have wanted them.