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Employing staff through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) does not transfer the legal risk of that employment to the primary care network (PCN). Whichever practice or organisation holds the contract of employment carries full responsibility for redundancy, sickness, disciplinary and grievance processes, maternity leave, pension obligations, and TUPE liability, even where the PCN, not the practice, controls how that staff member is deployed day to day. This gap between who controls the role and who carries the legal liability for it is the single biggest source of ARRS-related disputes we see. It has become more pressing, not less, since the 2026/27 Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES) formally opened up direct practice-level employment of ARRS staff alongside the traditional PCN, federation, or lead-practice models. More practices are now considering bringing ARRS roles in-house, and more are discovering the legal exposure that comes with it. This post sets out where the main traps sit and how to structure your way around them. Why ARRS Employment Is Structurally Different A PCN is a contractual construct, not a separate legal entity, so it cannot itself hold an employment contract. Every ARRS role therefore has to be employed by someone else on the PCN’s behalf: a nominated lead practice, a joint employer arrangement between member practices, a GP Federation or other third party under a sub-contract, or, since 2026/27, a Core Network Practice employing directly under the updated DES terms. Whichever model is used, the underlying tension is the same: the staff member typically works across multiple practices or is deployed at the direction of the PCN, while UK employment law was built around a single employer with a single, identifiable set of obligations to a single employee. That mismatch is what creates the traps. Responsibilities that would sit automatically with one employer in a normal working relationship (recruitment, day-to-day management, HR processes, cover arrangements, redundancy, and restructuring) have to be deliberately allocated between the PCN and its member practices. If that allocation is not written down clearly, the default legal position, that the employer carries the liability, applies regardless of what was informally understood or intended. The Main Legal Traps 1. Redundancy and funding-dependent roles ARRS reimbursement is not guaranteed indefinitely, and roles are sometimes structured on fixed-term contracts described as “subject to available funding” rather than on a permanent basis, a practice the Royal College of Nursing has specifically flagged as creating unstable employment for staff in ARRS roles. From the employer’s side, the risk runs the other way: if a PCN decides to reduce or reallocate a role, the practice that holds the employment contract still has to run a fair redundancy or restructuring process. A change in PCN funding priorities is not, by itself, a shortcut around normal redundancy law. 2. TUPE on transfer between employers Where ARRS roles move between employers, for example from a GP Federation to a Core Network Practice under the new 2026/27 direct employment route, or where deployment is restructured in a way that amounts to a service provision change, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 are likely to apply. TUPE automatically transfers the affected employees, on their existing terms, to the new employer, along with accrued liabilities. Dismissing an employee for a reason connected to the transfer itself is automatically unfair. Practices restructuring ARRS employment arrangements, including bringing previously federation-employed staff in-house, need to assess TUPE at the planning stage, not after the change has already happened. 3. Fragmented governance across multiple practices Where an ARRS employee works across several practices in a PCN, questions about who line-manages, who signs off leave, who conducts appraisals, and who handles a performance or conduct issue can become genuinely unclear without a written agreement. This is not a hypothetical risk. In our experience, disciplinary and grievance matters involving shared ARRS staff are where governance gaps surface fastest, precisely because more than one practice has an interest in the outcome but only one holds the actual employment contract. 4. PCN fragmentation and exit If a practice employs ARRS staff on behalf of the PCN and another member practice later leaves the network, or the PCN’s structure changes, the employing practice can be left holding redundancy and salary liabilities created by a decision it did not make and may not have agreed to fund. Without a clear written agreement allocating that risk in advance, the default position is that the employing practice bears it alone. 5. Absence cover that ARRS does not fund ARRS reimbursement does not automatically cover the cost of providing cover for an absent member of staff. Unless practices have agreed in advance who provides and pays for cover during sickness or leave, the default position is that there is none, which can leave a practice short-staffed with no funded route to plug the gap. What the 2026/27 Changes Mean in Practice For 2026/27, NHS England confirmed that ARRS roles may be employed by the PCN, by a Core Network Practice, or through another provider with commissioner approval, giving practices a clearer legal footing for direct employment than existed previously. Reimbursement ceilings have also risen substantially, with the maximum reimbursement for an ARRS GP (salary plus on-costs) increasing to £152,900 outside London and £155,698 including London weighting, up from around £105,000 in 2025/26, and the previous restriction limiting ARRS GP roles to those within two years of their Certificate of Completion of Training has been removed entirely. PCNs can now also recruit non-direct patient care roles, such as PCN managers, data analysts, and digital transformation leads, from ARRS funding, subject to commissioner agreement. These changes make direct practice employment more financially attractive, but they do not remove the underlying legal complexity. If anything, as more practices bring ARRS roles in-house, more practices are taking on employer liability for the first time without necessarily having the HR and payroll infrastructure in place to manage it. Documents That Should Be in Place Document What it should cover PCN Agreement / Workforce Sharing Agreement

A GP surgery building does not have to be held inside the medical partnership, and in many practices it is better if it is not. Whether the property counts as “partnership property” under section 20 of the Partnership Act 1890, or is held separately by some or all of the partners as co-owners outside the partnership, changes who has a say over it, how it is taxed, and what happens to it when the medical partnership itself changes shape. Our commercial property and partnership teams are regularly asked to unpick this after the fact, when it would have been far simpler to set up correctly from the outset. This is a decision every property-owning GP practice makes, whether deliberately or by default. If nothing is documented, the default statutory position under the 1890 Act applies, and that default position is rarely what a group of GPs with different levels of investment and different retirement timelines would actually choose if asked directly. What “Partnership Property” Actually Means Section 20 of the Partnership Act 1890 defines partnership property as anything originally brought into the partnership or acquired on account of the firm, and it must be held and applied by the partners exclusively for partnership purposes, in accordance with the partnership agreement. If the surgery building is partnership property, every partner has an interest in it that rises and falls with their partnership share, not a fixed, standalone share in the bricks and mortar. Section 20(3) of the same Act deals with a different scenario: where co-owners of land are partners only as to the profits generated from using that land, not as to the land itself, further property bought with those profits belongs to them as ordinary co-owners in their original proportions, not as partnership property, unless they agree otherwise. This is the legal basis for the structure many GP practices actually use in practice: a separate property-owning arrangement that sits alongside, but is legally distinct from, the medical partnership that holds the GMS contract. Two Structures, Compared Feature Building held as medical partnership property Building held separately (co-ownership / declaration of trust) Who has a share Every partner, automatically, in line with their partnership share Only the partners who actually invested, in whatever proportions were agreed What governs it The main partnership deed, often as a minor clause among many others A dedicated declaration of trust setting out valuation, decision-making and exit terms specific to the property Effect of a partner joining New partner’s property interest is whatever the deed says, but the deed may not have been updated to reflect actual buy-in arrangements New partner buys in (or not) separately, on terms set at the time, without disturbing the wider partnership deed Effect of a partner retiring Falls away with their partnership share unless the deed specifically preserves it Retiring partner can retain their property interest independently of leaving the medical partnership, if the trust deed allows it Risk if documentation lapses All property provisions can fall away if the partnership deed is not kept current Property terms are ring-fenced in their own document, less exposed to drift in the main deed Why Many Practices Use a Separate Declaration of Trust In our experience, minimal property provisions tucked into a wider partnership deed cause more disputes than they prevent. A dedicated declaration of trust tends to work better for several concrete reasons: The Tax Position You Need to Check Either Way How the building is held changes the tax analysis in two areas that HMRC scrutinises closely for GP practices: Capital Gains Tax. Partners are treated as owning a fractional interest in each partnership asset. Moving the building’s ownership structure, for example from full partnership property into a separate co-ownership arrangement, can itself be a disposal for CGT purposes for some or all of the owners, depending on how the change is implemented. Stamp Duty Land Tax. Schedule 15 to the Finance Act 2003 sets out special SDLT rules for partnerships, including transfers of land into a partnership, between partners, and out of a partnership on retirement. These rules can produce relief in some scenarios and a full charge in others depending on the consideration given and the connected-persons position, and HMRC has increasingly queried SDLT exemptions claimed on GP surgery property transactions. Any restructuring of how the building is held should be checked against Schedule 15 before it happens, not after the transfer has completed. NHS Reimbursement Does Not Care How You Structure Ownership Internally, But It Does Care Who Owns It The NHS (General Medical Services – Premises Costs) Directions 2024 pay notional rent to a contractor that owns its premises, and leasehold rental costs where the contractor rents from a landlord. NHS England is not concerned with the internal mechanics of your declaration of trust, but it is very much concerned with who the legal and beneficial owners are, because that determines which reimbursement route applies and whose consent is needed for lease and rent review decisions. Getting the internal ownership structure and the external-facing lease or notional rent position aligned is essential, and we cover the reimbursement mechanics in full in GP Surgery Leases: Why They’re Different from Ordinary Commercial Leases. How This Connects to Retirement and Liability Risk The structure you choose now shapes two problems you will meet later. First, if a partner retires and wants to keep a property interest, a separate declaration of trust makes that considerably easier to accommodate cleanly than unpicking a share embedded in the main partnership deed; we cover the retirement mechanics in Retaining Your Property Share After GP Retirement. Second, unclear or outdated property provisions are a recurring driver of the ‘last man standing’ problem, precisely because nobody is sure who is actually still on the hook for the building. What This Means for Your Practice If your surgery building is currently dealt with in a couple of paragraphs inside your main partnership deed, it is worth asking your solicitor to review whether a dedicated