Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Evans of Rainow on 20 March (HL Deb col 1529), what is the source of their data for saying that six percent of GP services could be provided by pharmacies; and what is the evidence base for those data.

The source of the data that 6% of general practitioner (GP) services could be provided by pharmacies, as referenced by Lord Evans of Rainow on 20 March, is the report Making Time in General Practice, published by the Primary Care Foundation and NHS Alliance in October 2015. This research found that 5.5% of GP appointments were potentially avoidable by being directed instead to self-care/pharmacy. These findings were referenced in the later report General Practice Forward View, published by NHS England in April 2016. In this report the figure was rounded to 6%.

Copies of both reports are attached.