Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the findings on concerns of general practice staff on delivering adequate level of care in winter 2023 in the Royal College of General Practitioners report entitled Fit for the Future GP Pressures 2023, published in March 2023, what steps he is taking to ensure that staff in general practice can deliver adequate levels of care in winter 2023.

We are expanding general practice (GP) teams through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme in order to create 50 million more appointments a year by 2024 and free up GPs’ time for work that only they can do. Since 2019, we have recruited over 25,000 additional staff into GPs, covering a range of roles, for example clinical pharmacists.

In the 2023/24 changes to the GP contract, we have also taken steps to streamline the Impact and Investment Fund (IIF). The remaining £246 million of the IIF will be entirely focused on improving patient experience. £172.2 million (70%) will be provided as a monthly payment to Primary Care Networks through the Capacity and Access Support Payment, and the remaining £73.8 million (30%) will be allocated by integrated care boards, according to assessment against locally agreed access improvement plans.