Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will put in place oversight of integrated care boards that frequently commission services from GP practices that regularly underperform in patient satisfaction surveys.

We recognise that despite the hard work of general practice teams, patients are still struggling to access care from general practitioners (GPs). We know that GPs are delivering record numbers of appointments, however, patient satisfaction has dropped nationally.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) must ensure that GP services meet the needs of the local population, and NHS England has a legal duty to annually assess the performance of each ICB and to publish a summary of its findings. The assessment must consider how well the ICB has discharged its functions, including the duty to improve the quality of services and the duty to make arrangements to involve patients, carers and the public in commissioning plans and decisions that affect them.