Oral Answers to Questions

Paulette Hamilton Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for her hard work securing that funding for the crisis centre in her constituency. These centres make such a difference, because they are based in the community and can intervene at an earlier stage when someone is facing difficulty. They are on top of measures such as our mental health ambulances, which will also respond to people in crisis, and supporting our local communities to deal with mental health as well as those with a mental illness.

[Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

22. What steps he is taking to improve patient access to primary care.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)]

We have increased real-terms spending on general practice by more than a fifth since 2015. We are growing the workforce, with 2,200 more doctors and 25,000 extra primary care clinicians compared with 2019. We have the most GPs in training ever, up from 2,600 to 4,000. In January there were 11% more appointments in general practice than in the same month before the pandemic. I pay tribute to the work that general practitioners are doing.

[Mrs Hamilton]

Under the Tories, the number of qualified GPs has fallen to a record low, which is hitting local communities across the UK very hard. In January, in Erdington, Kingstanding and Castle Vale, more than 2,000 people had to wait more than a month for a GP appointment. Is it not the case that the longer the Tories are in power, the longer patients will have to wait?

[Neil O’Brien]

As well as the 2,200 extra doctors in primary care, I mentioned the 25,000 extra other clinicians. That means that in the hon. Lady’s constituency there are 55% more staff working directly with patients than before.