Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of appointing a National Clinical Director within NHS England for coeliac disease.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has invested in senior clinical leadership in gastroenterology, which includes coeliac disease, as a priority workstream in the national Getting It Right First Time programme.
To support healthcare professionals in the diagnosis and management of coeliac disease, and improve the diagnostic pathway nationally, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has produced the guidance, Coeliac disease: recognition, assessment and management [NG20].
NICE guidelines represent best practice, and both healthcare professionals, including general practitioners, and service commissioners are expected to take them fully into account. Guidelines published by the NICE are not mandatory, and do not replace the judgement of clinicians in determining the most appropriate treatment for individual patients.
To assist with increasing the visibility of coeliac disease, the NICE promotes guidance via its website, newsletters, and other media. It also publishes information for the public, which explains the care people with coeliac disease should receive, as set out in the NICE guideline. Information for the public on coeliac disease is also published by the National Health Service and is available on the NHS website.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to increase (a) awareness and (b) optimum management of prosthetic infection in primary care.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practitioners (GP) are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge remains up to date, including for prosthetic joint infection, and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development. This activity should include taking account of new research and developments in guidance, such as that produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, to ensure that they can continue to provide high quality care to all patients.
All United Kingdom registered doctors are expected to meet the professional standards set out in the General Medical Council’s (GMC) Good Medical Practice. In 2012 the GMC introduced revalidation, which supports doctors in regularly reflecting on how they can develop or improve their practice, giving patients confidence that doctors are up to date with their practice, and promoting improved quality of care by driving improvements in clinical governance. The training curricula for postgraduate trainee doctors is set by the Royal College of General Practitioners, and must meet the standards set by the GMC.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had recent discussions with the Royal Association for Deaf people on the accessibility of GP appointments for deaf and hearing-impaired people.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ensuring that general practice appointments are accessible to everyone, including those who are deaf or hearing-impaired, is a top priority for the Government. Our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care, published in May 2023, outlines the implementation of a new Modern General Practice Access model, which offers an alternative option to the traditional telephone-based booking system. This is underpinned by £240 million of retargeted funding to improve digital access routes, and support practices to implement new technology. Digital systems will give patients, including the hearing-impaired, the choice to use an online form on the practice’s website to seek help, instead of having to phone for an appointment, or visit in person. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has not recently met with the Royal Association for Deaf People.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department issues guidance to GPs on alternatives to phone-based booking systems for access to appointments for deaf and hearing-impaired people.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ensuring that general practice appointments are accessible to everyone, including those who are deaf or hearing-impaired, is a top priority for the Government. Our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care, published in May 2023, outlines the implementation of a new Modern General Practice Access model, which offers an alternative option to the traditional telephone-based booking system. This is underpinned by £240 million of retargeted funding to improve digital access routes, and support practices to implement new technology. Digital systems will give patients, including the hearing-impaired, the choice to use an online form on the practice’s website to seek help, instead of having to phone for an appointment, or visit in person. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has not recently met with the Royal Association for Deaf People.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the share of NHS funding for general practice.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Plan committed to increasing investment into primary medical and community health services, as a share of the planned total National Health Service revenue spend across five years, from 2019/20 to 2023/24. Investment in general practice (GP) has grown in each of the last five years and in 2021/22, the latest year for which data is available, we saw a 7.14% growth in investment, compared with 2020/21. The full report is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/investment-in-general-practice-in-england-17-18-to-21-22/
The Delivery Plan For Recovering Access to Primary Care, published by NHS England on 9 May 2023, recognised the benefits of moving care closer to home, and supported the vision set out in Dr Claire Fuller’s stocktake report, Next steps For Integrating Primary Care. This is backed by a major new investment into primary care services, with up to £645 million over two years to expand the services offered by community pharmacies, helping to take the pressure off GPs, and providing patients with more options for care.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of requiring each integrated care system to establish alert systems for general practice.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England instructs integrated care boards (ICBs) to ensure tools are in place to understand demand, activity, and capacity levels in primary care. It is for ICBs to work with practices to determine appropriate local escalation processes for periods of increased demand, and many practices have already agreed such processes with their ICBs, specifically tailored to local needs.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the potential merits of introducing a guaranteed permanent residence for international medical graduates qualifying as GPs.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise the important role that international medical graduates play in helping to grow the general practice (GP) workforce, and the barriers that they can face upon successful completion of GP Specialty Training. We have introduced an additional four months for these doctors at the end of their visa, which will allow newly qualified international GPs who wish to work in the United Kingdom with the time they require to find employment following completion of their training. Having invested in National Health Service training for these GPs, they should continue working in the sector by securing employment with a GP with a visa sponsorship licence.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help grow the GP workforce.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We remain committed to growing the general practice (GP) workforce, and the number of doctors in GPs. There were 4,282 more headcount, or 2,709 full time equivalent, doctors working in GPs in March 2024, compared to March 2019. The Government is working with NHS England to increase the GP workforce in England. This includes measures to boost recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession, and encourage them to return to practice.
We have increased the number of GP training places, and 2022 saw the highest ever number of doctors accepting a place on GP training, a record 4,032 trainees, up from 2,671 in 2014. Under the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan, the number of training places will rise to 6,000 by 2031/32, with the first 500 new places available from September 2025.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will undertake a review of her strategy on alcohol use through a harm reduction approach.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government takes a wide-ranging approach to reducing alcohol related harms. Several aspects of the Department's work to address alcohol related harms already follows a harm reduction approach. These include the UK Chief Medical Officers’ low-risk drinking guidelines, which recommend that people moderate their drinking to 14 units a week, and guidance from England’s Chief Medical Officer for healthcare professionals, on the consumption of alcohol by young people. The National Health Service’s Better Heath campaign aims to motivate people to take steps to improve their health, including in relation to alcohol use, and the NHS Health Check provides an opportunity for general practitioners to offer advice to reduce alcohol use, if appropriate.
In relation to treatment, the Department is committed to promoting access to alcohol services through our drug strategy. The upcoming UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment will include a chapter on taking a harm reduction approach within alcohol treatment, which outlines a flexible service approach. The Department, in partnership with the devolved administrations, will publish these guidelines later this year.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full-time equivalent GPs worked in the NHS in England in each financial year since 2009-10.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is publicly available and can be accessed here:
and