GP Contract

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

As the noble Lord said, we have seen 1.3 million people diverted since April 2025. Otherwise, they would have been added to the electives waiting list, in clinical terms, unnecessarily. The main thing I can say to the noble Lord on advice and guidance is that I think the figures speak for themselves. That is why we are embedding it into the core contract. We are recognising it as routine practice. It provides more predictable funding and removes annual sign-ups. More generally, I must emphasise to the noble Lord that it does not take away a GP’s right to refer. That remains a matter of clinical judgment and, as in all things, clinical judgment will rule the day.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have now mandated a cast-iron guarantee that GP practices’ online portals must remain open in core hours, but a portal is merely a digital letterbox, it is not a clinician. Has the department conducted a full clinical risk assessment of the danger of red-flag symptoms being buried in high volumes of routine digital traffic? If so, will the Minister publish those findings today? If not, how can the Minister guarantee that this always-on requirement is clinically safe for patients?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

When we develop digital approaches, I have to say again that the figures speak for themselves on, for example, patient satisfaction with general practice: people believe it is finally moving in the right direction. According to the Office for National Statistics, some 77% of people described contacting their GP as easy. That was in January this year, and it was up from just 60% in 2024. I think the public are giving their own view. On development of online access, we always ensure that patient safety is at its heart. I cannot give the commitment to publish that the noble Lord seeks, but I will be very happy to write to him and place a copy of the letter in the Library of the House, giving all the detail about how patient safety is assured. That is core to all our work and developments.