Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Heappey and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We welcome people working in social care from the EU and from the rest of the world, and we need to ensure that that can continue, but we also need to ensure that we can train people locally to work in social care. That is incredibly important.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

T2. GP surgeries across the Wells constituency are innovating with the employment of nurse practitioners, paramedics and other types of clinician to fill vacancies when recruitment of GPs has not been possible. While this often works well, we still have too many vacancies for doctors. What steps will my right hon. Friend be taking to encourage the thousands of GPs in training to consider practice in rural and coastal areas like mine in Somerset?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. As important as new technology is and new ways of working and nurse practitioners are, we still need more GPs, and we need more GPs especially in rural and coastal areas. The targeted enhanced recruitment scheme offers a £20,000 salary supplement to attract GPs to parts of the country where there are serious shortages, including in Somerset.