The New GP Contract 2025/26: A Legal Perspective

Readers will already be aware of the key points and changes in the GP Contract for 2025/26. It brings the promise of significant increased funding, a reduction in red tape, the end of national collective action and (hopefully) improvements for the benefit of both patients and staff.

Other commentators have focused on the financial and workload impact of the new contract. In this blog we aim to help you understand the legal impact of the changes and to be aware of how this may impact on your documentation and compliance requirements.

Key Legal Changes in the New GP Contract 2025/26

Partnership Dissolution

The recent Bhat case and its impact on partnership changes has clearly been noticed at NHS England. The new contract proposes to amend the GP Contract regulations to enable the ICB to terminate a GMS contract ‘where there is no clear successor when a partnership dissolves’. The devil will be in the detail here, but this provision has the potential to add even more uncertainty to an already confused topic. As highlighted by Bhat, there is a difference between ‘technical’ and ‘general’ dissolutions and their impact on a practice GMS contract. It will be interesting to see how the commissioner plans to determine the nature of a dissolution when even lawyers disagree.

The best advice for practices here is to have a well drafted, up to date partnership agreement with very clear and easy to follow rules regarding expulsion and dissolution. Then, if you are minded to expel or dissolve, take expert legal advice before doing so. The consequences of getting this wrong are invariably significant and costly.

Data Sharing

There is a new requirement to ensure various data sharing functionality is enabled in GP Connect by 1 October 2025.

The requirement to enable GP Connect should be reflected in data processing documentation and privacy notices. Data is becoming a particularly complex and risky area for practices as patients become increasingly aware of their rights, and remember that the GP practice is the data controller. If patient data is inadvertently disclosed, the patient will always look to the practice in the first instance, and the only way a practice can mitigate the risk in this scenario is to have compliant processes and to have data sharing agreements where the recipient of the shared data agreed to indemnify or reimburse you if they cause the breach. Data breach insurance is also well worth considering.

Focus on PCNs

It is notable how central PCNs are to the new contract. Dr Amanda Doyle even signs off by saying she hopes the changes ‘will be seen as positive for practices, PCNs and for patients’, so it seems unlikely that PCNs are going away anytime soon. The merging of the ‘GP pot’ into a combined ARRS pot increases flexibility, and any GPs hired last year can be rolled forward into the current year. There are however still restrictions on GP recruitment, such that new GP hires must have obtained CCT within the last 2 years.

This should give PCNs confidence to make more strategic decisions around their organisation and structure, but clearly does not remove all risk and uncertainty. The best advice for PCNs remains to think about structural solutions to their inherent risks. We would anticipate that those PCNs which are still operating in lead practice or flat practice models will look again at risk reduction strategies such as PCN incorporation, outsourcing to federations, or practice mergers. The ‘right’ answer will be different for each PCN, so it is important to always take advice.

With regard to the GP ARRS funding, we have written previously about the risks involved with this, but it is encouraging that the previously recruited GPs are at least still being funded. This does leave open the question about the long term though. If you roll forward five years, will a ‘new GP’ hired under the ARRS funding in 2024 still be entitled to ARRS funding even though by that time they would be an experienced GP? As the pool of ARRS GPs gets bigger a solution to this will need to be found, but obviously if it ends up with redundancy the costs will fall on the PCN and the longer a GP has been employed, the greater the cost. The same possible mitigation strategies are still available as we wrote about previously, though some may judge that the risks are lower now that the pools have been merged.

How DR Solicitors can help

Overall it is obviously pleasing to see additional funding directed at primary care, but it is always important to mitigate the risks and ensure good governance.

Whilst the new contract introduces certain new risks, the legal mitigations remain the same: ensure that your partnership agreements are up to date, and that your PCN has robust documentation around its structure and a transparent operating model.

At DR Solicitors, we have the UK’s largest team of specialist primary care solicitors, and we can help you navigate the changes by putting proper legal frameworks in place that will be essential to ensure practices operate efficiently and remain compliant under the new GP Contract 2025/26.

Next steps

For more information or a free, no obligation call with one of the DR Solicitors team, please contact us.