Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 26 October 2016 to Question 50489, on Capita: standards, what additional measures and resources are now employed to restore those essential services.

Capita has provided NHS England with rectification plans to recover the most important Primary Care Support services. These include:

- Improving the process for patients to register with general practitioners (GPs) with improved information technology and additional staff;

- Improving the management of Capita’s customer support centre through increasing the number of staff and improving their training;

- Working with NHS England to fast-track the consideration of applications to the GP National Performers’ List whilst recruiting additional staff, improving training and providing better tools to track and process applications;

- Adding more expert staff to payment services to ensure that backlogs are cleared, especially for GPs and ophthalmologists; and

- Improving access to medical records and clearing the backlog of urgent requests with a re-designed process (currently being piloted in West Yorkshire ahead of national roll-out) and additional drivers, vehicles and routes to ensure an improved courier service.

These improvements and additional resources have been provided by Capita at their expense and my hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Nicola Blackwood), will continue to work directly with Capita and NHS England to ensure that services are restored to an acceptable and sustainable standard.