Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of GPs that plan to retire in Easington constituency in the next five years.

The Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme is a national incentive scheme which funds a £20,000 salary supplement to attract general practitioner (GP) trainees to work in areas of the country where GP training places have been unfilled for a number of years. 238 trainees entered the scheme in 2016 and 2017. 265 places were made available in 2018 and a further 276 are available for 2019.

In 2018, there were 33 places available on the scheme in Durham and North Yorkshire and in 2019, a further 33 places have been made available in Rural and Coastal Durham and North Yorkshire. These figures are not available broken down by constituency. No estimate has been made for the number of GPs due to retire in the next five years in the Easington constituency as there is not a mandatory retirement age for GPs.