Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a maximum number of appointments each GP can undertake in one day.

We hugely value the critical role that general practitioners (GPs) play, and GPs are delivering more appointments than ever before. No evaluation has been conducted to determine the merits of introducing a maximum number of appointments each GP can undertake. GPs are independent businesses who are contracted by National Health Service commissioners to perform essential medical services. As a result, individual practices are responsible for the daily operations of their business outside of their contractual obligations, including determining the number of clinics and appointments offered to patients. This is because each practice is best placed to understand their own workforce and workloads.