GP Appointments

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Absolutely. One of the things I am very proud to be leading on the NHS side is our whole digital way of addressing access to the health service. This will be fundamental to how people make their hospital appointments and take control of their own health, so it will be the main thing that will help with the 8 am appointments, alongside the increased telephony services and everything else. Just as every walk of life is coming down to being able, at your fingertips, to make appointments and bookings and get your own records, this will also be the case with GP surgeries and I think it will fundamentally change the way that we address our whole health.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, part of the problem is where there is no mobile phone signal. People who live or who have homes in Cornwall will identify with that. Does the Minister have any idea what proportion of patients find accessing their GP difficult? What advice has been given to practitioners on resolving the issue? In rural areas such as Cornwall and Northumberland, there are poor bus services, if any. Getting home can mean a really long wait—sometimes half a day if there are only two buses a day. What advice would the Minister give to the GP and to the patient?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

First, my understanding is that the vast majority of homes in Cornwall have broadband, to which your mobile phone will of course connect. That is where people will be making appointments from. They can use digital to do that. Secondly, we are rapidly increasing the number of doctors’ appointments. We made a pledge to increase the number of appointments by 50 million. To date, we have increased them by 36 million—11% up since 2019. So we are making more appointments available. Do we want to do more? Absolutely. Are we going to publish a primary care plan shortly to show how we will address those additional needs? Yes.