GPs in England have elected a leading doctor to lead them following the controversial ousting of their previous leader.

The new chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee for England is Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of the UK conference of local medical committees since 2019 and chief executive of the Cambridgeshire local medical committee. She succeeds Dr Farah Jameel, whose ousting in a no confidence vote last month was opposed by a petition which currently has 791 signatures. Dr Jameel had been on maternity leave for most of the year. The petition signatures say they have “no confidence” in the BMA and the way it treats people from the global majority and says that Dr Jameel has been the victim of sexism.

The vote left no role for the committee’s former deputy chair, Dr Kieran Sharrock, who had been acting chair for a long period. Three doctors become deputy chairs of the committee, Dr David Wrigley, Dr Julius Parker and Dr Samira Anane.

Dr Bramall-Stainer said: “As GPC England begins a new chapter, our focus and greatest challenge is to safeguard the very survival of our profession. I will be writing to Rishi Sunak and Steve Barclay in the coming weeks to ask to meet with them to discuss how we can better redistribute investment into the core GP contract, because any other proposal stands to leave our nation’s health and finances much worse off. I look forward to setting out our vision, strategy and plan this Autumn: to restore trust in the patient-doctor relationship; champion GPs’ unique role as independent health advocates for our patients and focus on continuity of care – all three improve and lengthen patients’ lives and sustain our own professional wellbeing too.”

Dr Sharrock said: “I look forward to returning to the back bench where I will support Katie and her team in their work to negotiate the contract desperately needed by the profession. I would like to thank the BMA team and the officers who have worked so hard whilst I was acting chair. It has been a privilege to undertake this role.”