Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an estimate of the potential (a) savings to the NHS, (b) impact on waiting times and (c) impact on the workload of GPs of proposals to pay GPs £20 per request for undertaking advice and guidance with hospital specialists.

Advice and Guidance services enhance two-way communication between clinicians in primary and secondary care, with a view to ensuring patients receive the right care, in the right clinical setting. The Elective Reform Plan has committed to ensuring general practitioners will receive £20 per Advice and Guidance request, to recognise the importance of the role that they play in the delivery of this important service.

The Government has not made a standalone estimate of the potential savings to the National Health Service. This is not a new policy. Advice and Guidance has been shown to be successful in reducing demand on elective care by diverting potential referrals, where specialist advice determines that the most appropriate setting for care is in primary or community care. Approximately half of Advice and Guidance requests were diverted in 2023/24. Where advice from a specialist results in a patient being treated in a primary or community care setting instead of a referral to the waiting list, patients should be seen sooner, in a suitable setting closer to home, with the right course of action, benefiting from specialist input.