Seniority payments

Positive payments may consist of both positive and negative adjustments, which combine to make an overall positive payment. This could include a combination of positive/negative adjustments for individual GPs during the 2016/17 financial year. 

Negative adjustments may consist of both positive and negative adjustments, which combine to make an overall negative payment. This could include a combination of positive/negative adjustments for individual GPs during the 2016/17 financial year.

The email that was sent to you contains information for the 2016/17 financial year, with a table that lists the following information:

• GP Name & GMC number
• Years of Reckonable Service at 1 February 2016
• 2016/17 Income recorded
• Total Seniority Paid (on account) 2016/17
• Total Calculated Seniority Entitled 2016/17
• 2016/17 Adjustment Figure £

Please note, negative adjustments may consist of both negative and positive adjustments, which combine to make an overall negative adjustment. This is the overall amount owed by a practice.

Please raise a request via the online form if you require a further detailed breakdown of which GP(s) the overall negative adjustment relates to.

PCSE will email this information to you. 

The Seniority payments scheme ended on 31 March 2020. Any new applications for seniority ceased as of 1 April 2014. Only GP Partners who previously qualified remained in receipt of these payments, which were subject to an annual reduction.

The payments were calculated on a doctor’s NHS Reckonable Service, and were included on the practice's quarter end payment in June, September, December and March.

The doctors annual estimated income was used to calculate whether they qualified for payments in full, whether they got these payments abated by 60% or if they didn't qualify for payments at all.

If PCSE did not receive an updated Estimate of Profit Pay/Contributions for all GP Partners from a practice, the seniority payment may have been affected. If a doctor had drawn their pension, an estimate should still have been provided for seniority purposes only.

NHS England is undertaking a Seniority payment reconciliation and as part of this work, PCSE has made the relevant adjustments to practices.

Seniority payments were made to Principal GPs in recognition of their years of NHS reckonable service. The scheme closed to new applicants on 1 April 2014 and the last payments were made at the end of March 2020. 

Seniority was paid ‘on account’ and then adjustments made when the Final Seniority Factor (FSF) is published (usually 3 years later). The 2016/17 Final Seniority Factors (FSF) have been published and are available to view here.

The financial year 2016/17 has been calculated using information from NHAIS, including but not limited to:

• GMC number of GP
• Number of years qualified for payment
• The quarter that the Anniversary occurs (years increased by 1)
• The payment already made on account based upon your estimated pensionable pay
• The actual pensionable profit figure as declared for the year end certificate for that year
• The practice for the GP at the time the payment was made

For example: A GP with an anniversary date of 4 February will see their payments increase (in line with the published seniority rates) each year on this date. Therefore, a GP with 25 years reckonable service on 1 April 2016 will see this increasing to 26 years on 4 February 2017. This means that for 2016/17 anything from 1 April 2016 to 3 February 2017 will be calculated at the 25 year rate and then from 4 February 2017 to 31 March 2017 it will then be calculated at the 26 years rate. 

We have taken steps to minimise the financial impact on practices with overall negative adjustments. 

If you feel the overall deduction, due to be processed in August, will place your practice at risk of financial hardship, please submit a request for a repayment plan to PCSE by Friday 20 June 2025.

Your request must be made via the online form only, selecting 'Payments' as the query type, and then 'Seniority payments' from the Payments query drop down. Please make sure you include 'Repayment Plan Request' at the start of your message.

The request will then be forwarded to your ICB for review.

If agreed by the ICB, PCSE will set up a repayment plan for the remaining 8 months of the 2025/26 financial year (August 2025 to March 2026). The overall negative adjustment figure will be divided into 8 equal parts.

Where an ICB informs PCSE that a repayment plan is not applicable, PCSE will confirm this to the practice by 4 July 2025. If necessary, the practice can discuss the matter directly with their ICB.

Where a repayment plan has been set up, a full breakdown of the monthly negative adjustment figure will be available in your contractual statements until March 2026, with the following details:

•    GMC code
•    GP surname
•    Financial year 
•    Overall negative adjustment amount (for information purposes only)

There may, however, be additional adjustments made to a small number of practices as further data is validated for 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20. Where this is applicable to your practice, we will be in touch as soon as this is confirmed.

Processing the adjustments for 2016/17 will complete the work NHS England intends to undertake with the historical reconciliation of seniority payments.

There may, however, be additional adjustments made to a small number of practices as further data is validated for 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20. Where this is applicable to your practice, we will be in touch as soon as this is confirmed.

Practices are advised to refer to their merger agreements if guidance is needed on treatment of any payments or adjustments.

Yes. Seniority adjustments are processed against a GP Practice for an individual who was a GP Partner at the time of the employment. Practices should refer to their partnership agreements on how these monies should be handled.

If the practice wishes to challenge the overall negative adjustment figure, then PCSE will pause the recovery until such time the query is resolved.

Challenges must be made by close of business on Friday 20 June 2025 to allow PCSE sufficient time to remove the recovery from August 2025 processing, whilst the query is investigated. 

Your request must be made via the online enquiry form only, selecting 'Payments' as the query type, and then 'Seniority payments' from the Payments query drop down.

Please make sure you include 'Challenge Seniority Overall Negative Adjustment' at the start of your message and provide the following supporting information:

• GP name
• GMC number
• Financial year
• Reason for challenge

Seniority adjustments are made following publication of the "final seniority factor" (FSF) that enables any adjustments to be made to estimates submitted by practices. The FSF is usually published 12-18 months after payment has been made "on account", which automatically creates a delay to any adjustments that need to be made. It is clear that some adjustments were processed at the time, whilst others were not. 

There has been a complex information gathering exercise to analyse the data required to accurately identify any adjustments required for practices, and as the Seniority scheme itself has now finished we are working through a retrospective programme to identify and make adjustments to close the scheme off.