Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help (a) reduce bureaucracy and (b) improve access to treatments.

While health is a devolved matter, to reduce bureaucracy the Government and NHS England have launched a Red Tape Challenge, to address bureaucracy between primary and secondary care, to give our health professionals time back to do what they do best.

We are working to improve access by increasing the number of appointments delivered in general practice (GP), and taking the pressure off those currently working in the system, by investing £82 million in England to recruit over 1,000 newly qualified GPs through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme. We are also training thousands more GPs and ending the 8:00am scramble for appointments by introducing a modern booking system.

Last January, Pharmacy First was launched, which enables patients to receive treatment for seven common health conditions from a pharmacy without the need to visit a GP. In dentistry, we are working to ensure patients can start to access 700,000 additional urgent dental appointments as soon as possible, targeting the areas that need them most.

Additionally, funding announced in the Autumn Budget will support the delivery of an additional 2 million operations, scans, and appointments during our first year in Government, which is the equivalent to 40,000 per week, as a first step in our commitment to ensuring that patients can expect to be treated within 18 weeks.

As part of the Government’s five long-term missions, we have launched a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the NHS and make it fit for the future. The plan will set out a bold agenda to deliver on the three big shifts needed to move healthcare from hospital to the community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. The online portal is available for engagement at the following link:

https://change.nhs.uk/en-GB/