Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what (a) support and (b) resources her Department provides to help GP surgeries in Mid Bedfordshire constituency to clear patient backlogs.

We published our ‘Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care’, with the goal of increasing capacity and making it easier to receive an appointment in primary care.

This will be accomplished by modernising telephone systems to help practices better match their capacity to patient demand as well as building additional capacity by diversifying the workforce to include a wider range of practitioners for patients. This will help free up GP time for more complex cases. We are also expanding community pharmacy, with the introduction of ‘Pharmacy First’. This will enable community pharmacists to manage seven common conditions including the supply of prescription-only medicines without a prescription from a GP. These proposals have the potential to release 10 million GP appointments. Pharmacy First is due to launch on 31 January 2024.

We are also investing at least £1.5 billion to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024.