Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Appointments in General Practice report published in December 2022, how many of the GP appointments recorded were first contact triage appointments.

In NHS Digital’s December 2022 Appointments in General Practice data publication, the number of general practice appointments recorded with the category “clinical triage” was 3.50 million, in November 2022. New data was published on the 26 January 2023 showing that 3.23 million appointments were recorded with the category “clinical triage” in December 2022. This will include first contact triage appointments, but data is not available for exclusively first contact triage appointments.