Prime Minister pledges to deliver seven-day GP service in England by 2020

GPs in England are to be offered a voluntary contract to provide seven-day-a-week cover for patients, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced. But the GPs’ union and the Labour party warn that this is ‘unachievable’ and ‘not credible’ without extra resources and staff.

As well seven-day GP cover, Mr Cameron also promised that seven-day hospital services will be extended to "half the country" by 2018 and the whole of England by 2020.

Mr Cameron said: “Our plans for a truly seven-day NHS will transform services for millions of patients. It will offer hardworking taxpayers and families the security of the care they need at a time that is convenient to them. I want to pay tribute to the fantastic work of GPs and indeed all NHS staff across the country.

“I know they face huge pressures – that is why we will direct more money into primary care and clear out bureaucracy as part of the drive to develop a new contract that will be better for patients and NHS professionals, seven days a week.

The new contract for GPs will be voluntary, with family doctors able to decide whether they want to join forces with neighbouring GPs to form federations and networks of practices delivering seven-day care to populations of at least 30,000 patients. It will be funded with money from within the £10bn of additional investment promised for the NHS.

Grouping GPs together in federations or networks will allow them to deliver better integrated care, Mr Cameron argues.

They will also be able to work more closely with community nurses, hospital specialists, pharmacists and other health and care professionals, he added. Trials of seven-day GP access have already begun, with 18 million patients getting extended availability by March this year.

But the GPs' union, the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has warned that seven-day opening in England is unachievable in this Parliament and risks destabilising care.

Dr Maureen Baker, chair of the union, said: "The College's position on this is quite clear and, as we said at the RCGP conference only last week, the Government is living in cloud cuckoo land if it thinks that we can deliver a seven-day service against a backdrop of the current GP shortages and the lowest-ever share of the NHS budget for general practice.

"We have since learned that the new contract will be voluntary, and we understand there are to be future announcements on resources, but at this stage we question whether enough will be done to support general practice across England. "Seven-day access may be a lofty political aspiration but at a time when general practice is already creaking at the seams, we do not think it is a good use of NHS resources to be offering ear syringing on a Sunday teatime.

Emphasising the current shortage of GPs, she added: "As we said at our conference last week, if the Government doesn’t shore up existing GP care as its top priority, not only will we not get a seven-day service, but we won't have a five-day service either, because general practice will be completely decimated.

"We urgently need the Government to prioritise and invest in the five-day routine family doctor service - including at least 5,000 more GPs for England over this Parliament - so that we can guarantee our patients the safe care that they need and deserve."