The number of higher earning GPs dipped slightly last year, but one in eight contractor GPs still earned £150,000 or more before tax, according to a new report from The NHS Information Centre out today.

Latest figures show 4,230 or 12.7 per cent of contractor GPs earned £150,000 or more before tax in 2008/09. This compares with 4,470 or 13.3 per cent in 2007/08.

The latest GP Earnings and Expenses report for 2008/09 provides a detailed study of the NHS and private earnings of both contractor and salaried GPs in the UK. The provisional report was published in September 2010. This final report contains additional information on earnings and expenses by practice size, Strategic Health Authority (SHA) and rurality.

This report has been agreed by the Technical Steering Committee which includes representatives from the four UK health departments, NHS Employers and the British Medical Association.

The average income before tax of a contractor GP in the UK was £105,300 in 2008/09, a decrease of 0.7 per cent since 2007/08. This compares with an average income before tax of £57,300 for a salaried GP in the UK in 2008/09, an increase of 2.7 per cent since 2007/08.

Figures for contractor GPs are based on their medical income from self-employment sources. As figures reflect earnings reported on tax returns, it includes private as well as NHS work and covers both full and part time GPs.

For contractor GPs, the report also showed:

• 700 GPs (2.1 per cent) had an income before tax of between £200,000 and £250,000. In 2007/08, this figure was 650 (1.9 per cent).
• 250 GPs (0.8 per cent) had an income before tax of at least £250,000. In 2007/08, this figure was 260 (0.8 per cent).
• Single-handed contractor GPs operating a practice on their own had the highest income, earning an average of £120,800 before tax.
• Contractor GPs working in a practice with six or more GPs had an average income before tax of £103,400.

The report is at: www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/gpearnex0809

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Notes to editors

1. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care (The NHS IC) is England's authoritative, central, independent source of health and social care information. It works with a range of health and social care providers nationwide to provide the facts and figures that help the NHS and social services run effectively. Its role is to collect data, analyse it and convert it into useful information which helps providers improve their services and supports academics, researcher, regulators and policymakers in their work. The NHS IC also produces a wide range of statistical publications each year across a number of areas including: primary care, health and lifestyles, screening, hospital care, population and geography, social care and workforce and pay statistics.

2. The data source for the survey is HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC) tax self assessment database, which covers earnings and expenses from all self-employed professional earnings sources.

3. The results in the report are estimates based on samples, and therefore each figure has a small margin of error. Differences between groups and sub-groups of GPs, or between 2008/09 and the previous year may reflect sampling error as well as real changes.

4. The report contains information on contractor GPs – i.e. GP partners – who form the majority of the workforce. The results for contractor GPs have been adjusted to exclude employer's superannuation contributions. The report also contains results for salaried GPs, which have been adjusted to include employee's superannuation contributions, thereby putting results for contractor and salaried GPs on the same basis.

5. GP employment definitions: A contractor GP, previously referred to as a principal GP, is a practitioner who has entered into a contract with a Primary Care Organisation (PCO) to provide primary care services. This may be as a single-hander, or as part of a partnership. A contractor GP may employ salaried GPs. A salaried GP is employed by the contractor GP(s) of a practice; they may also be employed by the Primary Care Organisation (PCO). The cost of employing a salaried GP could form part of the employee expenses of contractor GPs. If the salaried GP is employed directly by a PCO then the ‘employer' GP's tax return will not have included the expense.

6. Rurality is defined by the ONS “Rural and Urban Classification 2004” for England and Wales, the “NHS Postcode Directory” for Scotland and the “Statistical Classification and Delineation of Settlements” for Northern Ireland. The rurality definitions described for each of the countries are used to assign rural or urban markers to patients based on their postcodes. If more than 50% of patients belonging to a practice are classified as rural, the practice is categorised as rural. Likewise if 50% or more of patients are classified as urban, the practice is categorised as urban.

7. In this report practice size is calculated by including both contractor and salaried GPs. In previous earnings and expenses publications the measure excluded Assistants (these were based on a flag on the GP census and are a historic way of classifying some salaried GPs). It is no longer appropriate to exclude these GPs. This change means that results in this section are not comparable to previously published figures and represents a break in the time series.

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