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 reduce GP waiting times in Wallasey.

The Government wants everyone to be able to access a primary care professional when they need to. The actions set out in the NHS Long Term Plan, backed by the extra £4.5 billion of investment in primary and community care by 2023/24, and the five-year contract framework for general practice, are already being implemented and will build the general practice workforce and improve access to primary care services. The Government is creating an extra 50 million general practice appointments a year within the next five years and is committed to growing the workforce by 6,000 more doctors in general practice and increasing the skills mix with 6,000 more primary care professionals.

Wirral Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has advised that general practice services are available between 8am and 8pm seven days a week at 27 sites across the Wirral through its Enhanced Access service. A range of healthcare professionals are available for patients to see including general practitioners, nurse prescribers, physician associates and clinical pharmacists. The CCG has advised this service provides an additional 45 appointments per 1,000 patients per week on top of the individual practices’ appointment capacity per week.