“They gave GPs an option to give up a commitment to being ‘on call’ in exchange for decreasing their salaries by £8,000 annually. Naturally, they all mostly did give it up.“
A case of “you can’t even pay us to attend to our patients”?
The £8K probably came back through some other channel – or it was added on so as to be taken off, “Buy One, Get One Free” or “60% discount on all carpets” style.