Oral Answers to Questions

Damien Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

First, I wish a happy St David’s day to the hon. Member and all those celebrating. I would be happy to meet her on this issue. The Government greatly value the role of physician associates. She knows that they bring new talent to the NHS and act in an enabling role, where they can help healthcare teams with their workload. Physician associates will be regulated by the General Medical Council, and the Department has consulted on draft legislation on just how to do that.

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

T7. I recently met Specsavers to discuss how patient choice should be promoted by making all routine community services patient self-referrals, especially when that can free up GPs’ time by not using them as administrative gatekeepers. Will the Secretary of State commit to meeting me to discuss how we can increase GP capacity using such measures?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

I am very interested in hearing proposals on patient self-referral. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend. From a cancer perspective, we are also potentially looking at self-referrals for skin diagnosis for possible skin cancer and for breast lumps, because we want to reduce waiting times and increase GP capacity.