Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what safeguards are in place to prevent GP practices targeting younger and healthier patients.

According to the General Medical Services contract, general practitioner practices cannot refuse to accept a patient on to their list on the grounds of age, appearance, disability or medical condition, gender or gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation or social class.

The service provided by GP at Hand is available for all patients to sign up to if they live within the practice area. Patients may also register as ‘out of area’ patients i.e. where they live outside of practice area but work within London travel zones 1 to 3. In such cases, practices should consider whether it is clinically appropriate to accept a patient onto their list – taking into account the individual needs of the patient.