Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to its commitment of November 2019, what progress his Department has made on increasing GP numbers by 6,000 by 2024-25.

In September 2021, there were 1,841 more full time equivalent doctors in general practice compared to September 2019. We are working with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Health Education England and the profession to increase the general practice workforce in England. This includes measures on recruitment, addressing the reasons why doctors leave the profession and encouraging them to return to practice.

Last year, 3,793 number of doctors started general practitioner (GP) training, exceeding the target of 3,500. We have committed to increasing the number of GP training places to 4,000 a year from 2021, from 2,700 in 2014.