GPs in England have voted to take collective action for the first time in 60 years, which could cause some disruption.

It means family doctors will be able to pick and choose from a wide range of actions set out by the British Medical Association (BMA).

GPs could potentially limit the number of patients they will see each day to 25 and choose to stop performing work they are not formally contracted to do.

The last time GPs took collective action was in 1964 when family doctors collectively handed in undated resignations to the Wilson government.

This led to some reform being initiated including the introduction of the Family Doctor Charter of 1965.

GPs set to take collective action in England

Earlier in the week when collective action was being threatened, the PA news agency reported that one of the nation’s top GPs said the action could bring the NHS to a “standstill very quickly”.

However, medics have said they do not want to make patients “piggy in the middle” and are directing the action at NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care.

Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chairwoman of the BMA’s England General Practitioners Committee, said she aspires to talk to the current Government about a Family Doctor Charter 2025 – 60 years on from the original.

“We have moved on so much since then, but I think we need to again agree on a set of principles if you want the NHS to be free at the point of use, universal to all, funded through central taxation,” she told PA.

“In a free at-the-point-of-use service, you have got to have a really effective, emboldened, resourced gatekeeper. And your gatekeeper is the GP.

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“The GP model is why the NHS has lasted as long as it has done and when you try and break the GP model, you break the gatekeeper, and when you break the gatekeeper, you break the NHS. I think that is what we’re seeing on a macro level.”

On the industrial action, she said: “We’re not going on strike. This is a collective, premeditated, disruptive action.

“It is industrial action, but the target isn’t patients. The target is NHS England Department of Health.”