Scottish Government GP plan failing to deliver

28th March 2025

A Scottish Government agreement with GPs to improve general practice has failed to deliver on several of its commitments.

The 2018 General Medical Service (GMS) contract aimed to address the financial pressures and growing workloads facing GPs, and to improve patients' access to care. However, seven years on:

the estimated number of whole-time equivalent GPs has fallen
pressure on general practice has increased proposals to support GP teams with more nurses, physiotherapists and other specialists have moved more slowly than planned.

and people report finding it more difficult to access care.
The Scottish Government has not set out how it intends to invest in general practice over the medium-term. And it is unlikely to hit its target of 800 more GPs by 2027.

Spending on general practice as a proportion of overall NHS spending has fallen slightly in recent years. And between 2021/22 and 2023/24 spending decreased by 6 per cent in real terms, putting more pressure on GP practices.

National data for primary care remains inadequate. There is a lack of robust information about general practice demand, workload, workforce, and quality of care. This limits the Scottish Government's ability to say whether the GMS contract changes represent value for money or have improved patient care.

Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland, said, "The pandemic pushed back plans for general practice. But the new delivery deadlines that were put in place were missed, and there's not been enough transparency about progress since then.

The Scottish Government needs to clarify its plan for general practice and set out the actions, timescales and costs to deliver it.

This is real tale of woe and you need to red the report to get an insight in how worrying it all is.

Read the full report HERE
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