Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to NHS Digital General and Personal Medical Services workforce data, for what reason the number of patients per FTE GP has increased in Easington constituency since March 2016.

The number of patients per full time equivalent general practitioner (GP) in Easington is not currently published within the NHS Digital General and Personal Medical Services workforce data.

When assessing primary care capacity, it is important to also consider wider workforce within primary care. Many practices have increased capacity for patient care through increasing the skills mix within practice clinical teams including nurse practitioners, specialist nurses to manage those patients with chronic diseases, emergency care practitioners and pharmacists. This is something that is particularly the case within the Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield geographical area and is something that the Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) advises they have both supported and encouraged.

Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield CCG advises that its primary care strategy outlines a general practice five point plan. This includes support for GPs considering retirement to encourage them to stay in general practice longer; giving GPs the flexibility of working across many sites; incentivising GPs to work in this alternative model across several practices as opposed to being a locum; and the GP Career Start initiative aimed at attracting GPs who are looking for the opportunity to take up a post in general practice at an early point in their career and recruiting new GPs from Europe. This strategy is currently being implemented.