GPs in England will receive £40 million to give extra support to up to 300,000 vulnerable patients this winter, in a programme announced by the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary on Monday 9 November 2026.

The ring-fenced funding is designed to help practices spot patients at risk of becoming seriously unwell and act before a small problem turns into a hospital admission. It forms part of the government's wider preparations for winter pressures on the NHS.

Who will receive the extra support?

The programme is aimed at patients with heart disease, frailty, emphysema and other forms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Practices will identify the patients they consider most at risk and offer support tailored to each person's needs.

That support could include medication reviews, health checks, home assessments and nurse-led respiratory clinics. Primary care networks, which bring groups of GP practices together, will receive £126 for each eligible patient supported.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said: "If we want to take the pressure off our hospitals this winter, we've got to keep people well at home. So we're backing GPs to reach the most vulnerable people early, before a small problem turns into a trip to A&E."

Part of wider winter preparations

Health Secretary Yvette Cooper said the plan would help GPs and local teams give more support to the frailest patients in the community. "That is better for patients and means they are also less likely to need hospital care," she said.

The £40 million sits alongside £190 million allocated in the Budget to manage winter pressures and £140 million for 14 new urgent care schemes. A further 25 new or expanded urgent care sites will be open this winter, including a £29 million same-day emergency care unit which opened on 20 October at William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent. It is expected to care for an additional 60 patients a day.

By 1 November, more than 13.6 million people in England had received their flu vaccine, around 300,000 more than at the same point last year. Among school-aged children, 2.4 million had been vaccinated, almost half a million more than a year earlier.

The government said there are now more than 2,800 additional GPs compared with July 2024, and more than 30,500 fully qualified full-time equivalent GPs working in general practice, the highest number in over a decade. More than 400 million appointments were delivered over the past year, around 24 million more than in the equivalent period before July 2024.

Funding comes from existing budgets

The announcement has drawn a mixed response. The funding is being reallocated from within existing GP budgets for 2026/27 rather than provided as entirely new money, a point confirmed in reporting of the announcement.

The British Medical Association told Pulse that the money was being taken from individual practices and moved to primary care networks, and warned that this could threaten the sustainability of local surgeries.

Professor Victoria Tzortziou Brown, president of the Royal College of GPs, welcomed the focus on prevention but cautioned that short-term initiatives alone could not deliver sustained improvements in care for patients with complex health needs. She said she hoped the evaluation of the scheme would inform a longer-term approach to prevention, supported by sustainable investment in general practice.

Dr Amanda Doyle, national director for primary care at NHS England, said GPs and their teams were delivering record numbers of appointments and were well placed to spot patients at greatest risk of becoming very unwell this winter.