HEALTH chiefs are bracing themselves for the region’s GPs to go on strike.

Family doctors have overwhelmingly rejected a new contract from the Government in a row over funding and are threatening industrial action.

Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board (ICB) chief executive Shane Devlin warned there was a “real danger” of a walkout and that this could have a knock-on impact on hospital and other NHS services.

The British Medical Association’s (BMA’s) GP committee chair Katie Bramall-Stainer has warned local NHS bosses that they need to start preparing for coordinated action, expected later this year before a general election, amid a “profound workload and workforce crisis”.

In a letter to the ICB – the local health authority – she said 99.2 per cent of 19,000 GPs and GP registrars who took part in a referendum in March voted to reject the contract changes for 2024/25.

Dr Bramall-Stainer said: “Following this result, the BMA wishes to alert ICB colleagues to the significant risks to Systems which may potentially ensue from any subsequent planned action arising from this powerful outcome.

“Over the past decade, England has lost over 1,300 practices and thousands upon thousands of GPs.

“Despite NHS England ‘hailing hardworking GPs’, continued consecutive years of underinvestment have resulted in a profound workload and workforce crisis. This will be recognised by all ICB colleagues.

“GPs are telling us in their thousands, via both the referendum result and in our 2024 national survey of GPs, that the current status quo is not sustainable nor safe.

“The imposition of the 2024/25 contract will continue to see practices close, patients lose their GP services, and local NHS systems face increased costs as a direct result.”

She said GPs could take coordinated action in the months ahead to ensure the Government and the health service understood how “fundamentally important GP-led General Practice is to the NHS”.

Dr Bramall-Stainer said that while potential action was yet to be determined, the committee wanted to give ICBs fair notice to make necessary preparations.

Mr Devlin told an ICB board public meeting: “The letter really highlights very clearly the notification of the real chance of some forms of industrial action within General Practice.

“You can see the very valid challenges and concerns that the GP family have with where they are, and clearly what the letter is saying is ‘we’re giving you due notice, but you really need to consider what it is as a system, what it is as an ICB, you are going to put in place to keep patients safe should industrial action be taken by GPs’. It’s a really important letter.”

He said the ICB’s experience of dealing with numerous strikes over the last year, including by junior doctors and consultants, put it in good stead but that this was “very different”.

“We are talking about 1.4million appointments (daily across the country), we are talking about the front door of the health service and we are now starting to build what are the mitigations that we could put in place to keep patients safe should GPs go this particular direction,” Mr Devlin said.

“I’m not making any judgement as to any of it but we must put mitigations in place because this is a real danger, not something theoretical on a piece of paper, so we are working on that.”

Stuart Walker, interim chief executive of University Hospitals Bristol & Weston NHS Trust, which runs the BRI, Bristol Children’s Hospital and Weston General, told the meeting that both the junior doctors’ and specialist doctors’ industrial disputes were still ongoing.

Prof Walker said previous experience showed that strikes by different groups of health professionals were usually timed to coincide or immediately follow each other.

Mr Devlin replied: “Absolutely, it’s a plan for industrial action which is not exclusive to any single group.

“You’re quite right, we do know industrial action is placed often to create the biggest impact and therefore it might not be unexpected if that impact was not a single impact.”

ICB chief delivery officer David Jarrett said: “The consequences on Sirona and acute services will be significant so we have to take all the learning from the previous approaches and really work with partners in planning for any potential, but the value of understanding those consequences has really helped.”

Mr Devlin’s report to the board on Thursday, May 2, said that although no decision had yet been made, “it must be assumed, for the purposes of planning, that action will be taken”.

It said: “Therefore, the ICB will be developing mitigation measures to support the continued delivery of services.

“The ICB will be developing scenario and contingency plans and asking providers to prepare plans and mitigations.”

The Department of Health and Social Care has not responded to requests for a comment.

A spokesperson previously said it was “disappointing” that the BMA had voted against the contract.