Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to improve access to GPs.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

6. What steps he is taking to improve access to GP surgeries in North East Bedfordshire constituency.

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to improve access to GPs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is right to ask. It is incredibly important that we get the right number of GPs, not least to reduce the amount spent on locums, who can be very expensive and often do not know the local population as well as salaried GPs. Her local clinical commissioning group is developing a new-to-practice fellowship in Hastings for GPs starting out in practice in order to encourage more doctors into practice and then to support them. It is also working with primary care networks so that more can become GP trainers and take on students. We are expanding the numbers going into GP training—there were record numbers last year—but I want the numbers to go up again and to make sure that Hastings gets the GPs it needs.

[Richard Fuller]

As part of the council area with the second-largest population increase in the country, the people of Biggleswade, Sandy, Arlesey and Stotfold are at their wits’ end over access to GP appointments. What special attention will the Secretary of State pay to those areas of large population growth to make sure that increases in housing are matched by increased access to GPs?

[Matt Hancock]

That is an incredibly important point. We have a manifesto commitment to ensure that where there is new housing there is also new primary care. Just as a new housing estate will often require a new primary school and new transport links, so we need to put in the GPs as well.