Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what target his Department has set for receiving a GP appointment; and what the average waiting time is for a GP appointment in (a) England and (b) Gloucestershire in the most recent period for which figures are available.

The average waiting time for a general practitioner (GP) appointment is not collected or held centrally. In the 2017 GP patient survey 70.8% of respondents (who could remember whether or not they were able to get an appointment, and when they wanted the appointment) stated they saw or spoke to someone at a time they wanted to or sooner. NHS England is working with NHS Digital to consider ways of improving the availability and quality of GP data, including waiting times data.