As NHS England appears to be dragging its heels on mitigating the effects on GP practices that depend heavily on minimum income payments, many are making plans to cut staff or reduce GP hours, as they have no idea where talks might go on the matter.

The Government announced last year that it intended to remove the Minimum Practice Income Guarantee (MPIG) scheme completely over seven years from 2014 in order to make practice funding more equitable.

However, NHS England said that it would begin talks with the General Practitioners’ Committee (GPC) to discuss ways of mitigating the effects on rural and other practices that rely on MPIG but, with only five months to go until the first cuts are made, there have still been no talks.

According to the GPC, this silence has had a destabilising effect on practices and many have started to cut back on staff or hours worked, as they have no idea what if anything they will receive in terms of correction payments from next year.

Many are so concerned that they signed a petition in protest at the changes, which was presented last month to NHS England National Director for Commissioning Development Rosamund Roughton.

The GP who organised the petition, Dr Karen Massey, said that her practice will lose around £14,000 in the first year of the phase-out, which will be manageable if they cut her income and staff hours, but will not be sustainable after that and could even lead to the closure of the practice.

However, a spokesperson for NHS England said that it is committed to working with the GPC and others on how to handle the “very small number” of practices where MPIG payments make up a significant proportion of their income.