Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 8 November 2016 to Question 51861, what the current GP to patient ratio is in England; how many more patients he estimates there will be by 2021; and what estimate he has made of the expected GP to patient ratio by 2021.

As at 31 March 2016, there were 64.3 full-time equivalent general practitioners (GPs) per 100,000 registered population.

The Department does not hold an estimate of patient numbers in 2021, or of the expected GP to patient ratio by 2021.

The Government has a commitment to provide an additional 5,000 doctors working in general practice by 2020. In order to achieve this, there will be 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 GPs with be encouraged to return to general practice.