Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the guidance issued by his Department in May 2021 requiring general practices to offer face-to-face appointments, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that face-to-face appointments are being offered to patients across general practice.

General Practices (GP) have remained open throughout the pandemic, offering face to face appointments to those who need them as well as telephone and online consultations and are grateful for the effort they have made to support their patients. As outlined in the NHS England and NHS Improvement’s letter of the 19 July 2021 to GP practices, it remains a clear expectation that practices should offer a blend of face to face and remote appointments, with remote triage where possible. This is the approach many practices are taking and in July 2021, over half of all appointments (excluding vaccination appointments) were face to face (57.2%).

NHS England and NHS Improvement have commissioned an independent evaluation to understand the impact for staff, patients and the wider health and care system of using digital tools in primary care (and in particular the effectiveness of online consultation systems and triage approaches in general practice) to inform its long-term strategy.

The Department continues to work with NHS England and NHS Improvement and GPs to assess the impact of different types of appointment and to improve access for all patient groups. The public sector equality duty requires public authorities to have due regard to the impact of their policies on different protected characteristics, one of which is age.