Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will provide financial incentives to GP surgeries to identify and refer carers to local councils for support.

NHS England has no plans to introduce a new enhanced service scheme for 2015-16 to incentivise general practitioner (GP) surgeries to identify and refer carers to local councils for support. However, some existing enhanced services do offer support for carers. For example, one of the requirements of the Dementia Enhanced Service, known as “Facilitating timely diagnosis and support for people with dementia”, is that GP practices should identify carers of people diagnosed with dementia.

If the carer is registered with the practice, he or she should be offered a health check, which would include signposting to any other relevant services to support their health and wellbeing.