General practice transparency

In September legislation was passed making it a contractual requirement for GP’s in England to make a self-declaration of earnings to NHS Digital if they exceed a threshold of income for a financial year.

This covers GP partners, salaried GP’s and GP Locums.

For 2019/20 the threshold is £150,000 and a declaration is required by 12 November 2021. 

For 2020/21 the threshold is £153,000 and a declaration is required by 30 April 2022. 

The guidance and instructions on how to make the disclosure are set out here;

What earnings need to be declared?

The guidance sets out the earnings that need to be disclosed. There are many grey areas, but it is in the main any Practitioner income which would be defined as such under the Pension regulations.  This is not simply your accounting profit so no one should make a declaration based directly on the accounts. Some employment posts may not fall under this category.

GP’s who have decided to opt-out of the NHS Pension Scheme will still need to make a declaration using the same calculation of Practitioner pay.

GP Locums additionally need to make a similar disclosure. GP practices may need to change any contracts it has with locums to acknowledge the requirement a locum now has to make a disclosure.

What will we be doing?

Many of our GP’s will not be impacted by this legislation and no further information is required by them.

We will endeavour to email all those impacted with the figure that the disclosure requires by the due dates. This is our best interpretation of the rules as set out in the guidance and will use the figures from your pension return for that year or an equivalent figure where no pension return was required.  GP’s will then need to follow the guidance on the link above using the earnings figures provided by us for disclosure.

We will continue to monitor changes to the guidance and through our membership of AISMA we continue to discuss this issue with NHS England and the BMA.

Get in touch 

If you would like to discuss any aspect of the above or medical accounting in general, please contact Andy Pow, his details are below, or submit an enquiry using the link below:  

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