General Practitioners: South Tyneside

(asked on 13th September 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people in (a) Jarrow constituency and (b) South Tyneside have access to an adequate number of GP surgeries; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Steve Brine Portrait
Steve Brine
This question was answered on 10th October 2018

The average waiting time for a general practitioner (GP) appointment is not collected or held centrally. In the 2018 GP patient survey 61.6% 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.

The Government has committed to improving access to general practice services by 2019. This includes ensuring there are sufficient routine appointments available at evenings and weekends to meet locally determined demand, alongside effective access to out of hours and urgent care services. The latest National Health Service planning guidance, issued by NHS England in February 2018, requires clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to provide extended access to general practice to their whole population by 1 October 2018, to ensure additional capacity is in place ahead of winter 2018.

The General Practice Forward View (GP Forward View), published in April 2016, commits to increasing investment in General Practice by £2.4 billion a year by 2020/21 from £9.7 billion in 2015/16 to over £12 billion by 2020/21 – a 14% real-terms increase. This investment will improve patient care and access, and facilitate new ways of providing primary care.

Commissioners of primary medical care services monitor practice catchment areas to ensure that all areas of the country have primary medical care cover, and through an annual review of every primary medical care contract are aware of local primary medical care capacity and how this meets demand.

Practices are funded on a weighted population basis and therefore, where populations grow gradually, practices receive additional investment to take on new patients which allows them to grow to maintain services for patients. There has been a national trend in practices becoming larger, employing more staff and operating with a more diverse workforce in order to meet rising demand.

NHS South Tyneside CCG advises it has a number of schemes in place which maximise the availability of GP appointments. This includes support to diversify the workforce, a well-developed “Think Pharmacy First” scheme in South Tyneside community pharmacies and an extended access service which has offered approximately 15,000 additional appointments over the last nine months. Electronic consultations are also currently being piloted in the area.

NHS England Cumbria and the North East advises it also has a number of schemes in place to increase capacity in general practice. This includes a pilot of a tool to analyse workforce, capacity and demand and some CCGs are offering online consultations with more practices due to offer this service later this year. 45 practices have also received funding through the national resilience programme and the CCG has acquired funding for up to 25 GPs to take part in the Local GP Retention Fund to support retention of the workforce.

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