General Practitioners: Recruitment
(asked on 4th June 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the level of transparency and accountability in the distribution of Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme funding at the local level.
NHS England and the integrated care boards are responsible for the allocation and distribution of Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) funding to primary care networks (PCNs). This system is applied consistently across the National Health Service in England.
The PCN Additional Roles Reimbursement Sum is updated each year via updates to the Network Contract DES Contract Specification and supporting guidance, namely Chapter 10 of the specification and Chapter 7 of the guidance. The specification and the guidance are available at the following two links:
For 2026/27, it equates to £27.668 and a PCN's maximum entitlement is calculated by multiplying the £27.668 ARRS Sum by the PCN Contractor Weighted Population as of 1 January 2026. PCNs can calculate their entitlement by using the General medical services and primary care network income ready reckoner from 1 April 2026, which is available at the following link:
The scheme is subject to annual review as part of the consultation on the GP Contract with professional representatives. NHS England works closely with the Department to implement any changes identified as part of this process.
In October 2024 the Government announced changes to the ARRS which allows PCNs to recruit general practitioners (GPs) through the scheme for 2024/25. Since October 2024 over 3,700 GPs have been recruited through the ARRS.
As part of the 2026/27 GP Contract, we are increasing flexibility of the scheme by removing the restriction that ARRS funding can only be used for recently qualified GPs, increasing the maximum reimbursement amount for GP roles to reflect experience, and enabling PCNs to recruit a broader range of ARRS roles, where agreed with the commissioner.