Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many general practitioners became fully qualified in England in 2024–25.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

According to the latest published data from May 2025, there are 28,250 full time equivalent (FTE) fully qualified general practitioners (GPs). The corresponding headcount figure is 38,868.

Compared to May 2024, there has been a net increase of 601 FTE fully qualified GPs in May 2025. The net increase in headcount over the same period is 1,293.

Data on the number of vacancies is not held centrally.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many vacancies for general practitioners there are in GP surgeries as of 17 July 2025.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

According to the latest published data from May 2025, there are 28,250 full time equivalent (FTE) fully qualified general practitioners (GPs). The corresponding headcount figure is 38,868.

Compared to May 2024, there has been a net increase of 601 FTE fully qualified GPs in May 2025. The net increase in headcount over the same period is 1,293.

Data on the number of vacancies is not held centrally.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many fully qualified general practitioners there are in England as of 17 July.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

According to the latest published data from May 2025, there are 28,250 full time equivalent (FTE) fully qualified general practitioners (GPs). The corresponding headcount figure is 38,868.

Compared to May 2024, there has been a net increase of 601 FTE fully qualified GPs in May 2025. The net increase in headcount over the same period is 1,293.

Data on the number of vacancies is not held centrally.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the announcement that they will accept all recommendations of an independent review into physician associates (PAs) and anaesthesia associates (AAs) on 16 July, what additional support and training they will provide to existing PAs and AAs to ensure that they can continue to care for patients while addressing concerns about patient safety.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England has written to National Health Service trusts, integrated care boards, and primary care networks to reiterate their responsibilities to their staff as employers, including providing pastoral support where required. Importantly, NHS England has also written directly to staff most affected by the recommendations, in the Response to Recommendations from the Independent Review of Physician Associates and Anaesthesia Associates (the Leng Review), available on the NHS.UK website, setting out where they can find support if required.

Implementing the recommendations will require organisations to work together and take action. Some actions will be implemented immediately, whilst others will require wider input, with benefits being fully realised over time. The Department and NHS England will work to ensure that both patient and staff needs are met throughout this process. We will also work collaboratively with other key partners to set out a clear implementation plan for making the required changes, in advance of publishing a fuller response.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the expected remit of the proposed Health Data Research Service includes providing direct care.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

On 7 April 2025 the Prime Minister announced that the Government and the Wellcome Trust will invest up to £600 million to create a new Health Data Research Service, co-designed through engagement with the public and patients, data users, and stakeholder organisations.

Providing access to data for direct care purposes is not one of the Health Data Research Service’s planned capabilities. The Health Data Research Service will deliver a single point of access to health data for research from multiple sources, National Health Service and non-NHS. This service will bring new treatments and cures to patients by safely enabling the use of patient data to super-charge research, attracting investment and making the United Kingdom one of the best places in the world to conduct ground-breaking medical research.

The Health Data Research Service will be delivered across the UK to provide a single, integrated system for approved researchers across all sectors to access health, social care, and public health data safely. The service will streamline and simplify current processes, ensuring the safety and security of the data, allowing researchers to spend less time talking to different NHS bodies around the country and more time unlocking new insights that will transform our understanding of health.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase access to auditory verbal therapy for deaf babies and children, including by increasing the number of clinicians trained in the auditory verbal approach.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to raising the healthiest generation of children ever. This includes all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, including non-hearing children. Auditory verbal therapy is one of a range of approaches that can be used with deaf babies and children.

NHS England and the Department for Education are co-funding £10 million over two years in nine Early Language Support for Every Child pathfinder sites to improve early identification, universal and targeted support for speech, language and communication needs in early years and primary schools, with quicker referrals to specialist services when needed.

Delivering services that will raise the healthiest generation of children ever begins with its people. We will publish a 10 Year Workforce Plan to create a workforce ready to deliver a transformed service. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the best care for patients, when they need it.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are still committed to the target to enrol 50 per cent of young people with cancer onto clinical trials, as set out in the NHS Long Term Plan published in June 2019.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

To support the delivery of this ambition, the Department, through NHS England, has put in place new national service specifications, covering both Principal Treatment Centres and the associated Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) Designated Hospital provision, and has established networks to oversee pathways of care, coordinate clinical trial access, and develop local strategies to increase clinical trial recruitment. Alongside this, NHS England has also introduced a metric to monitor trial participation within the TYA Cancer Quality Dashboard.

The Department does not hold data on the overall percentage of children and young people with cancer that are enrolled into clinical trials nationwide but does collect data on general participation through National Institute for Health and Care Research) funded research infrastructure. The Department reports on this data where it is appropriate to do so.

Since it’s relaunch in February 2025, the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce has been exploring ways to improve outcomes and experiences for children and young people with cancer, including by improving access to research. The National Cancer Plan, due for publication later this year, will set out further details on how we will improve outcomes for all cancer patients, including young people.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 14 July (HL8966), what are the reasons for not allowing patients to directly nominate a distance selling pharmacy from within the NHS App.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

There are no current plans to allow patients to directly nominate a distance selling pharmacy (DSP) from within the NHS App. A discovery exercise completed in January 2025 explored this option and concluded that within the current landscape of DSPs there are several challenges that could impact user experience and timely access to medicines. This has been communicated to relevant DSP stakeholders.

The NHS App supports seamless pharmacy services by allowing patients to order repeat prescriptions, nominate their preferred pharmacy, and manage their medication. A new prescription tracker feature means that nearly 1,500 pharmacies are now offering the new prescription tracking service through the NHS App, which provides updates on when prescriptions are ready to be collected. Work has also commenced on an ‘in App’ notification which will enhance this feature further.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that the Government would build “250 to 300 new neighbourhood health centres” (HC Deb col 449), and further to the statement on page 32 of the NHS's 10 Year Plan for England: fit for the future that a neighbourhood would consist of 50,000 people, how they will ensure that all 57 million people in England will be covered by a neighbourhood health centre.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The geography of neighbourhoods should be determined locally by integrated care boards in partnership with their strategic partners, particularly local authorities. The Government aims to establish a Neighbourhood Health Centre in every community as we shift from hospital to community. Nationwide coverage will take time, but we will start in areas with the greatest need, for instance where healthy life expectancy is lowest, including coastal towns and communities with higher deprivation levels. Wherever possible, we will maximise value for money by repurposing poorly used, existing National Health Service and public sector estates. The Department is also currently writing a business case on Public Private Partnerships for Neighbourhood Health Centres for review as part of the Autumn Budget.

The Neighbourhood Health Service will embody our new preventative principle that care should happen as locally as it can, digitally by default, in a patient’s home if possible, in a Neighbourhood Health Centre when needed, and only in a hospital if necessary. The Neighbourhood Health Service will mean millions of patients are treated and cared for closer to home by new teams of professionals. We have launched the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme to support systems across the country to test new ways of working, share learning, and scale what works. This programme will inform future strategy and policy development, and outcome metrics will be rigorously monitored.

To support neighbourhood health, we will introduce two new contracts, with roll-out beginning next year, one of which will create neighbourhood providers that deliver enhanced services for groups with similar needs over a footprint of approximately 50,000 people. In many areas, existing groups of general practices will be well placed to take on these contracts.