Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to improve GP retention in the North East London ICS area.

We are working with NHS England and Health Education England to increase the general practice workforce in England, including North East London. This includes measures to boost recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession, and encourage them to return to practice.

The updated GP Contract Framework announced a number of new schemes, alongside continued support for existing recruitment and retention schemes for the general practice workforce. This includes the GP Retention Scheme, the GP Retention Fund, the National GP Induction and Refresher, the Locum Support Scheme, the New to Partnership Payment and the Supporting Mentors Scheme.

To boost recruitment, we have increased the number of GP training places. In 2021/22, we saw the highest ever number of doctors accepting a place on GP training - a record 4,000 trainees, up from 2,671 in 2014.