Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to conduct regular financial audits of GP practices that are part of national chains on an (a) national and (b) local individual surgery basis.

It is not the responsibility of the Department or NHS England to undertake financial audits of general practices (GPs). GPs are private businesses that are commissioned by integrated care boards to provide general medical services via a National Health Service contract. Practices have a range of auditing requirements, including disclosure of earnings, and maintaining an audit and system management function on their computer system, allowing NHS England to carry out audit functions relating to the maintenance of patient records.