Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase the availability of virtual GP appointments.

We are expanding capacity in general practice (GP) which will help deliver more virtual and face-to-face appointments to patients.

In October 2024, we invested £82 million into the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme to support the recruitment of an additional 2,000 GPs into primary care networks across England, helping to increase appointment availability and improve care for thousands of patients. We have invested an additional £1.1 billion in GPs to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service. This is the biggest increase in over a decade, and we are pleased that the General Practitioners Committee England is supportive of the contract changes. Additionally, the new £102 million Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund will create additional clinical space within over 1,000 practices across England in order to deliver 8.3 million more appointments each year.

As a result of these efforts, eight million more appointments have been delivered this year compared to last.