Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of proposed changes to the GP contract in England on (a) minoritised ethnic groups and (b) those with less visible and chronic conditions.

The Department and NHS England assessed the potential impacts of the proposed changes to the GP Contract for 2026/27 throughout the policy-development process, including Equality Impact Assessments, which consider the impact of policy changes against protected characteristics, in line with the public sector equality duty. In relation to minoritised ethnic groups, the assessment found no evidence that the proposed changes would result in adverse impacts. The Department considers that several elements of the contract changes may support more equitable outcomes, including improvements to vaccination programmes and refinements to the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), where uptake and disease prevalence are known to vary across different ethnic groups.

In relation to people with less visible and chronic conditions, we do not anticipate any adverse impact from the changes. Measures to improve access, continuity of care, and proactive management of long‑term conditions are expected to benefit patients with ongoing and complex health needs. In particular, the introduction of continuity of care as a core requirement will require practices and primary care networks to use risk‑stratification tools more systematically to target continuity where it is most beneficial, supporting more consistent clinical relationships, and better outcomes. The updated QOF requirements for long term and chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart failure, and obesity, align indicators with updated National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance, and support earlier intervention and preventative care to improve clinical outcomes for patients. In addition, clarifying expectations around not asking patients to call back another day, and clinically urgent and non‑urgent requests, will support timely management of requests, reduce repeat contacts, and will help to avoid any patients being left without appropriate follow-up.

The Department and NHS England will continue to monitor the impact of the GP Contract through workforce data, patient access metrics, and patient experience data, including demographic information collected through the GP Patient Survey, in order to identify and respond to any emerging differential impacts.