Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to increase the number of GPs in Enfield; and if he will make a statement.

NHS England, Health Education England (HEE) and the Department have been working together to increase the general practitioner (GP) workforce and support recruitment in areas where this has been identified as a challenge. The General Practice Forward View, published in April 2016, set out investment of an extra £2.4 billion a year by 2020/21 to support and grow general practice services.

At the Royal College of General Practitioners conference on 12 October 2017, my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced the extension of the Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme which funds a £20,000 salary supplement to attract GP trainees to work in areas of the country where GP training places have been unfilled for a number of years. HEE are currently deciding the allocation of up to a further 200 training places for 2018.

In addition to the national campaigns to increase the number of GPs, Enfield Clinical Commissioning Group is undertaking specific work to increase GP numbers within their area by working with NHS London and North Central London recruitment initiatives and continuing with its well established Vocational Training Scheme to train GPs locally and retain them in local practices.