General Practitioners

(asked on 7th January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of trends in the number of GP partners taking on roles in surgeries on NHS capacity to manage potential increased demand on GP services during winter.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 13th January 2020

The Government wants everyone to be able to access a primary care professional when they need to. The actions set out in the NHS Long Term Plan, backed by the extra £4.5 billion of investment in primary and community care by 2023/24, and the five year contract framework for general practice, are already being implemented and will build the general practice workforce and improve access to primary care services.

Evening and weekend general practice appointments are routinely available across the country now to enable patients to find appointments at a time convenient to them, with millions of patients having already benefitted from this. It also provides additional capacity to help to reduce some of the pressure on general practice and the wider system. NHS England, working with stakeholders, is undertaking a national review of access to general practice services. The review’s main objective is to improve patient access both in hours and at evenings and weekends and reduce unwarranted variation in experience.

Reticulating Splines