NI GP investment reaches £435m as spending rises above inflation for second year

Sunday 04 October 2026

Investment in Northern Ireland’s GP services has risen above inflation for the second consecutive year, reaching £435.1 million in 2025/26, according to new Department of Health figures.

Total investment in general practice, including reimbursement for drugs dispensed directly by GP practices, increased by £22.887m from £412.168m in 2024/25 — a cash rise of 5.55%. After inflation is taken into account, the year-on-year increase was 2.04%.

The £435.055m total is the highest cash figure shown in the Department’s published series, which dates back to 2013/14.

Second consecutive real terms increase

The latest increase follows a 2.02% real-terms rise in 2024/25, marking two successive years in which investment has grown after inflation.

Expressed in 2025/26 prices, investment fell to £417.946m in 2023/24 before increasing to £426.369m in 2024/25 and £435.055m last year.

The longer-term picture is more complex. Cash investment has increased by 18.41% between 2020/21 and 2025/26, but after inflation it remains 2.60% lower.

However, the Department cautions that the starting point for that five-year comparison was during the exceptional spending associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.

It states:

“General practice played a key role in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, this is reflected in higher levels of investment during that period including the financial year 2021/22.”

Real-terms investment reached £458.277m in 2021/22 when expressed in 2025/26 prices, before falling over the following two years. The latest £435.055m total therefore remains around £23.2m below that pandemic-era level, although the gap has narrowed during the past two years.

Over the longer ten-year period, the Department reports that cash investment increased by 63.09%, while the equivalent real-terms increase was 17.57%.

£11.7m linked to pay and expenses uplift

The Department says £11.717m of investment in 2025/26 was associated with increases covering GP pay and practice expenses following recommendations from the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration.

A 4% uplift was applied for GP pay, alongside a 4% uplift for practice staff expenses and 4.1% for other expenses.

Excluding reimbursement for drugs dispensed directly by practices, investment in general practice totalled £430.884m in 2025/26, up from £408.104m the previous year.

A further £4.171m related to reimbursement for drugs dispensed in general practice. This does not represent Northern Ireland’s overall prescription medicines bill, as drugs dispensed by community pharmacies are not included in the figures.

Core funding for GP practices

The biggest share of the £435m investment went towards the core funding used to support the day-to-day running of GP practices and the services they provide to patients.

This amounted to £274.149m in 2025/26, compared with £185.081m in 2021/22.

However, the increase does not mean practices simply received an additional £89m to provide the same services. Changes to the GP contract have altered the way some existing funding is recorded, with money previously paid through separate schemes moved into the main pot of core funding.

This includes funding previously provided through the Quality and Outcomes Framework, or QOF, which rewarded practices for meeting a range of clinical and patient-care standards. Around £31.1m was paid through QOF in 2023/24.

From 2024/25, QOF was replaced by a new system called the Northern Ireland Contract Assurance Framework, while its associated funding and money for some other services were transferred into core practice funding.

The change helps explain why the amount recorded as core funding has risen so sharply in recent years and means the figures cannot be treated as a like-for-like increase in resources available to GP practices.

£31m invested in GP Out of Hours

Investment in GP Out of Hours services, including the development fund, reached £31.007m in 2025/26.

That compares with £29.976m the previous year and £26.205m in 2021/22 — a cash increase of around £4.8m, or 18%, over four years.

Spending on information management and technology has also risen steadily, reaching £6.859m last year compared with £4.995m in 2021/22 — an increase of around 37%.

Meanwhile, £19.274m was recorded for GP premises in 2025/26, down slightly from £19.571m the previous year and below the £22.720m recorded in 2021/22.

Vaccinations minor surgery and additional services

A further £10.240m was spent on Direct Enhanced Services delivered through general practice during 2025/26.

The largest individual areas included:

• £3.535m for influenza and pneumococcal immunisations

• £3.272m for childhood vaccinations and immunisations

• £2.366m for minor surgery

• £442,000 for learning disability services

• £331,000 for shingles vaccination

• £280,000 for services for violent patients

Other GP-related expenditure included £5.596m in seniority payments, £4.894m for indemnity, £4.354m for treatment-room nursing, £2.174m for GP locum superannuation, £1.483m for adoptive, paternity and maternity locum cover and £1.341m for sickness locum cover.

The figures also include £11.537m classified as “Miscellaneous” within a wider £32.783m category covering PCO Administered Funds and Other GMS Services.

Enhanced Services figures reflect contract changes

Overall spending recorded under Enhanced Services fell from £88.457m in 2021/22 to £66.664m in 2025/26 — a reduction of around £21.8m, or 25%.

However, this should not be interpreted as a 25% cut to the underlying GP services. The 2021/22 figure included support connected to the Covid response, while subsequent contractual changes transferred funding for some Enhanced Services into core GP funding.

Local Enhanced Services expenditure fell from £34.202m in 2021/22 to £15.351m last year, although it increased slightly from £14.965m in 2024/25.

Overall the latest figures point to a recent recovery in the spending power of Northern Ireland’s general practice funding, with investment now rising above inflation for two consecutive years.

While it remains below the exceptional real-terms levels recorded during the Covid response, the statistics show money invested rather than patient access or service performance and therefore do not, on their own, establish whether the recent increases have resulted in more appointments, shorter waits or greater GP capacity.