Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of additional fully qualified full-time equivalent GPs required in England to restore the GP-to-patient ratio to 2015 levels.

The number of patients per full time equivalent (FTE) fully qualified general practitioner (GP) was 1,938 in September 2015 compared to 2,133 in January 2026, including GPs employed by primary care networks. To reach the same number of patients per fully qualified GP today, we would need an additional 3,012 FTE GPs. However, the GP workforce has changed significantly since 2015 with a wider range of professionals working in GPs. There’s currently an additional 38,265 FTE direct patient care staff working in primary care, including nurses, physiotherapists, and pharmacists.

Thanks to actions taken by the Government, we currently have the highest number of fully qualified GPs since 2015, and steps are being taken to grow the GP workforce further.

As part of the 2026/27 GP Contract, we are increasing the flexibility of the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) by removing the restriction that ARRS funding can only be used for recently qualified GPs, increasing the maximum reimbursement amount for GP roles to reflect experience, and enabling primary care networks to recruit a broader range of ARRS roles, where agreed with the commissioner.

Following feedback from the 2026/27 GP Contract consultation, we are introducing a practice-level GP reimbursement scheme which ring-fences and repurposes £292 million of funding from the current Capacity and Access Payment. This funding will be available to practices to hire additional GPs or fund additional sessions with existing GPs to improve access in GPs. This aims to strengthen capacity, access, and improve patient satisfaction, whilst also addressing GP unemployment and underemployment.