GPs are calling on the Government to exempt them from the tax rise for employers announced in the Budget, warning it could impact services for patients.

The NHS and the rest of the public sector will be spared a rise in National Insurance (NI) contributions from April next year.

But GP practices, which provide NHS services but are mostly run as small businesses, are currently hit hard by the increase.

The Department of Health says further information for GPs will be announced in due course, although details have not yet been given.

Private companies providing social care services have also warned about the impact the NI rise will have on them if it is confirmed.

Speaking earlier, Treasury Minister Darren Jones said changes to employment allowance – which allows some businesses to offset their NI bill – would protect small GP surgeries from tax rises.

But professional organizations have cast doubt on this claim, pointing out that businesses that do most of their work in the public sector are not eligible.

The Royal College of GPs has written to Health Secretary Wes Streeting calling for GP surgeries to be protected from surges by getting the “funding needed to cover these additional costs”.

Its chair, Professor Camilla Hawthorne, said surgeries would otherwise have to consider making redundancies or potentially closing, meaning patients would “bear the brunt” of the tax increase.

Dr David Wrigley, a GP and deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, also called for a “rapid announcement of full reimbursement”.

He said the impact of the NI rise would be “monumental” for practices, many of which were “already in financial distress”.

GP surgeries provide NHS care under government contracts, mostly as business partnerships run by multiple GPs working together.

This is separate from other parts of the NHS, which will be protected from increases under the broader public sector rebate of around £5 billion a year.

The Liberal Democrats are demanding exemptions for GPs as well as companies that run care homes and care for people in their own homes.

Speaking to reporters, leader Sir Ed Davey also said pharmacists should be included in the discount, saying the rise would “really hit” healthcare providers.

“They’ve given hospitals a rebate, for example, they need to give GPs and pharmacists a rebate,” he said.

Mike Padgham, chairman of Yorkshire-based Independent Care Group, said the NI rise could be the “last straw” for some providers in his area.

“The government has to do something and it has to do it quickly,” he said.

Downing Street said an extra £600m of grants for local councils to subsidize social care would help “relieve pressures in the sector”.