An amendment to the GMS Statement of Financial Entitlements (SFE) has been published, making several changes to the practice level GP reimbursement scheme. If your practice uses locums, has recruited a GP this year, or agreed extra sessions with salaried GPs, it’s worth checking what you can now claim.
The changes are:
- Practices can claim for GP locums under the scheme from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.
- Practices can transfer all, or part, of their funding entitlement to any other GP practice.
- Practices can claim for new GPs they employed between 24 February 2026 and 31 March 2027.
- Practices can claim a higher hourly rate for additional GP sessions agreed with existing salaried GPs between 30 April 2026 and 24 June 2026.
The same amendment also introduces improvement thresholds into the QOF childhood immunisation indicators, as set out in the 2026/27 QOF guidance.
The ability to transfer funding to another practice is the one that’s easiest to miss. If your practice isn’t going to use its full entitlement, it may be worth talking to neighbouring practices or your PCN about whether someone else can.
Worth doing now: check the amendment against your own picture of locum spend, recent GP recruitment and extra sessions since February, and note the dates above, because the eligibility windows differ for each change. Read the SFE and the supplementary information for the full conditions before making any claim.