Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 17 October 2016 to Question 47387, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the increasing volume of patients on the conditions and pressure that GPs are working under.

On 21 April 2016, NHS England published the General Practice Forward View, which recognised the need to expand and strengthen primary and ‘out of hospital’ care and to invest more in primary care. The General Practice Forward View is a package of support to help get general practice back on its feet, improve patient care and access, and invest in new ways of providing primary care.

As part of the General Practice Forward View, a new four year £40 million practice resilience programme was announced. 1,062 individual practices will benefit from support from this programme this year. There will also be £16 million extra investment in specialist mental health services to support general practitioners (GPs) suffering with burn out and stress and support retention of GPs.

NHS England will soon launch a major new programme of practice development. This will provide practical support for practices to implement new ways of working that release GPs’ time, making it easier for patients to get the help they need and for GPs to spend more time doing what only they can do. This will have benefits for patients and reduce pressure on hard-working staff in GP practices.

There are plans to double the rate of growth of the medical workforce to create an extra 5,000 additional doctors working in general practice by 2020. This will include increasing GP training recruitment, a major national and international recruitment campaign, bursaries and post-certificate of completion of training fellowships in hard to recruit areas, and encouraging GPs back into general practice.

There is also a commitment to a minimum of 5,000 other staff working in general practice by 2020/21. This will include investment in an extra 3,000 mental health therapists and investment to pilot and then extend clinical pharmacists in practices. There will be investment in a general practice nurse development strategy and to support the training of reception and clerical staff, practice manager development and multi-disciplinary training hubs. In addition there will be introduction of a new Pharmacy Integration Fund, pilots of new medical assistant roles to support doctors and investment by Health Education England in the training of 1,000 physician associates to support general practice.