Recovering Access to Primary Care

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

We plan to change planning guidance this year to address that specific issue. I have visited my hon. Friend’s constituency, and we resolved one of the issues in relation to the estate, which was extremely constructive. I know he has been discussing a further issue with the Department, but I hope he can take some comfort that his representations have been heard. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), is planning to make changes to the guidance to better ensure that, where there is new housing, a contribution is made to primary care.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

The problem in primary care is that we do not have enough GPs to meet the demand for appointments. The problem is not with the telephone system. The area I represent has one of the lowest ratios of GPs to population in the whole country. Will the Secretary of State support our campaign to train more doctors at Hull York Medical School, and for Hull York Medical School to set up a training facility for pharmacists and dentists?

[Steve Barclay]

As I said in my statement, we have 4,000 doctors training in primary care, compared with 2,600 in 2014. We are also looking at how we can better retain the GPs we have. That is why we made the pension changes, which will affect around 9,000 GPs. It is also why we are looking at additional roles to take pressure off GPs, and at how we can reduce some of the burden of bureaucracy, too. We are training more doctors, and we are looking at retention and bureaucracy. No one is suggesting that this is solely an issue of telephony or online booking, as the hon. Lady suggests, but all of this will help to relieve pressure on extremely busy primary care.