Medical pay awards announced yesterday sought to favour general practice – but still fell short of the hopes of GP leaders.

Doctors’ organisations accused the government of ignoring the recommendations of the Doctors and Dentists Pay Review Body.

Most doctors will have to wait until October for pay-rises, but the government sought to be more generous to GPs, back-dating a 1% increase in practice staff and partner remuneration funding to April.

Salaried GPs will have to wait until October for a 2% pay increase – while in October trainee GPs will get a 3%.

There was a promise of a further 1% for practices next year “conditional on contract reform.”

The Doctors and Dentists Pay Review Body, in a report published yesterday, recommended across the board 2% increases – although the impact would have been of 4% for practices.

Health secretary Matt Hancock said “Following this one-year pay rise, we want to open up a wider conversation on pay and improvements. This is the start of a process whereby we will seek to agree multi-year deals in return for contract reforms for consultants and GPs.”

NHS organisations raised concerns about how the awards would be funded.

Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said: “We now need assurances around how such awards can be fully funded.”

Dr Richard Vautrey, chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, said: “It is deeply concerning that the government has chosen not to honour the findings of its own independent pay review body across the entire NHS, but specifically for GPs.

“The nation’s beleaguered family doctors and their hard-working staff should be receiving at the very least, a 4% pay rise, as recommended by the pay review body, simply to keep services for patients running.”

He added: “For the new Secretary of State to commit, only last week, to addressing the workforce crisis in general practice and raise hopes of investment in primary care, to now dash those hopes, will signal to dedicated GPs and their staff that they are not valued.”