General Practitioners: Rural Areas

(asked on 12th July 2022) - View Source

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 tackle the shortage of GPs in rural areas; and what assessment his Department has made of the impact of that shortage on the quality of services that patients receive.


Answered by
James Morris Portrait
James Morris
This question was answered on 22nd July 2022

In 2016, we launched the Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme which provides a one-off financial incentive of £20,000 to attract doctors to train in locations where there have been challenges to recruitment, including many rural areas. In 2021, 550 places were available through the Scheme and following additional Government investment, there are 800 places available in 2022.

The general practice workforce also consists of other health professionals who can respond to the needs of patients, including in rural areas. We are diversifying the general practice workforce, including recruiting 26,000 more primary care staff, to ensure the appropriate range of skills is available in general practice to deliver high quality patient care.

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