Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to increase the (a) number and (b) accessibility of practising GPs.

The Government is committed to improving access to general practitioner (GP) services as part of our plan for a seven day National Health Service. By 2020, everyone will be able to access routine GP appointments at evenings and weekends, as part of the Government’s commitment to a seven day NHS.

On 21 April 2016, NHS England published the GP Forward View, 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. The GP Forward View sets out that we are investing an extra £2.4 billion a year for general practice services by 2020/21 – this represents a 14% increase in real terms. The overall investment for general practice includes a £500 million national 'turnaround' package to support GP practices.

A part of the GP Forward View, 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.

There will be a major £30 million ‘Releasing Time for Patients’ development programme to help release capacity within general practice.