Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to (a) improve the accessibility of health services to BAME communities, including to migrants and their families, and (b) mitigate the effects of the covid-19 lockdown so that existing health inequalities are not widened.

Anyone in England can register and consult with a general practitioner (GP) without charge. The GP practice must accept a patient wishing to register, unless there are reasonable grounds to refuse. These must not relate to race, gender, social class, age, religion, sexual orientation, appearance, disability or a medical condition. National Health Service guidance clearly outlines that a practice cannot refuse a patient because they do not have identification or proof of address.

Primary Care Networks (PCNs) build on the core of current primary care services and enable greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated and more integrated health and social care for our communities. One of the PCN service specifications is to ‘Tackle Health Inequalities’ which will be introduced in 2021/22 following negotiation with the General Practitioners Committee, England.