Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to take steps to incentivise new and existing GPs to locate in areas of high deprivation with the lowest numbers of GPs per patient.

The Department continues to work with NHS England and NHS Improvement to consider the best ways to tackle health inequalities within primary care, and to address variation in access to general practice. Since 2016, the Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme has attracted hundreds of doctors to train in hard to recruit areas by providing a one-off financial incentive of £20,000. In 2021, there are 500 places available.