Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support GP services in (a) Twickenham and (b) England during the covid-19 outbreak.

Across England and Twickenham, general practice is playing a vital role in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, delivering high quality care for both COVID-19 patients and for individuals requiring urgent care or essential routine care for new and pre-existing conditions that are non COVID-19. To support general practitioner (GP) services during this time a number of actions have been taken, including:

- providing an additional £150 million in funding to support expanding general practice capacity up until the end of March 2021, which follows support for the additional costs borne by GP practices during the first wave through the COVID-19 Support Fund;

- helping general practice adapt at pace to offer more remote care so that patients could continue to access GP services safely, by deploying laptops and headsets for use in primary care and accelerating the roll out of online video consultation capability;

- ensuring all GPs in England are eligible to use the personal protective equipment (PPE) portal to order COVID-19 PPE free of charge, and reimbursing GPs for the costs of such PPE purchased up to 31 December 2020; and

- the Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement are working to maximise workforce capacity through continued deployment and recruitment of the retired GP workforce and increasing the participation of the existing workforce. Locums and returning GPs made a valuable contribution to general practice during the first wave, with many coming forwards to support NHS 111 and the Covid Clinical Assessment Services.