Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the share of NHS funding for general practice to shift care into the community.

The NHS Long Term Plan committed to increase investment in primary medical and community health services as a share of the planned total national revenue spend in the National Health Service across the five years from 2019/20 to 2023/24. Investment in general practice has grown in each of the last five years for which we have published the investment in general practice report. In 2021/22, which is the latest year for which data is available, we saw a 7.14% growth in investment compared with 2020/21. The full report is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/investment-in-general-practice-in-england-17-18-to-21-22/

The Delivery Plan For Recovering Access to Primary Care, published by NHS England on 9 May 2023, recognised the benefits of moving care closer to home and supported the vision set out in Dr Claire Fuller’s Stocktake on Next steps For Integrating Primary Care. This is backed by a major new investment into primary care services, with up to £645 million over two years to expand the services offered by community pharmacies, helping to take the pressure off general practitioners and providing patients with more options for care.