According to the Social Health and Social Care Information Centre, contractor GP’s income fell for the seventh successive year during the last tax year, falling to £102,000 in 2012/13 before tax from its peak of £110,000 in 2005/06.

The Centre revealed that GPs’ expenses also rose by 2.9 per cent to £169,700, with the main outgoings from expenses such as premises and practice staff wages, although these figures are for the year before the contract imposition of 2013/14, which has seen GP income fall even more dramatically.

According to the report, the average income for salaried GPs in the UK was £56,400 in the last tax year compared with £56,800 in 2011/12, representing a slight decrease of 0.6 per cent.

It also concluded that, in real terms, the average contractor GP income before tax was £120,532 in 2004/05, which has decreased by around £18,000 over the past seven years.

In contrast to this, while income in real terms has declined, total expenses in real terms have increased steadily, from £156,336 in 2004/5 to £169,700 in 2012/13.

A spokesman for the General Practitioners’ Committee (GPC) said that GPs have been singularly disadvantaged compared to other comparative NHS healthcare staff, in not receiving the Government’s intended pay awards.

He added that this highlights the Government’s continued inadequate investment in general practice, which is not keeping up with the rising expenses of running a GP practice to meet the increasing volumes of care GPs provide.

The GPC says that as well as the fall in income, GPs face other problems, such as cramped premises, which are increasingly affecting their workforce, with seven out of ten current GPs now considering early retirement and hundreds of vacancies being recorded for GP trainee posts this year.