Asked by: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many GPs retired in (1) 2019, (2) 2020, and (3) 2021.
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the number of general practitioners who have retired from the NHS Pension Scheme in each year since 2019.
Scheme Year End | Number of retirements |
2019 | 1,144 |
2020 | 1,193 |
2021 | 1,331 |
Source: NHS Business Authority
Asked by: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they expect to answer the Written Questions tabled by Lord Watts on 17 November (HL4171, HL4172 and HL4173).
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
We responded to the noble Lord’s questions on 16 December and 29 December respectively.
Asked by: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Kamall on 16 November (HL Deb, cols. 158–160), how many doctors were employed by the NHS in (1) 2019, and (2) 2021.
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
In August 2019, there were 115,469 full time equivalent (FTE) Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) doctors working in National Health Service trusts and clinical commissioning groups in England and 126,625 in August 2021. There were 34,433 FTE doctors in general practice in England as at 30 September 2019 and 36,275 in September 2021.
Asked by: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Kamall on 16 November (HL Deb, cols. 158-160), what assessment they have made of the number of NHS doctors who are likely to retire between 2021 and 2024.
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
An assessment of future expected retirement rates for National Health Service doctors is complex. Retirement is a personal choice and an individual may choose to retire for a range of reasons. While it is not possible to isolate a single factor which motivates retirement, we continue to monitor retirement patterns of doctors in the NHS.
Asked by: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Kamall on 16 November (HL Deb, cols. 158–160), whether they expect to meet their target to increase the number of GPs by 6000 by 2024.
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
While progress against the target to increase the number of doctors in general practice by 6,000 by 2024 has been challenging, we remain committed to increasing the general practitioner (GP) workforce as soon as possible. In September 2021, there were 1,841 more full time equivalent doctors in general practice than September 2019 - a headcount increase of 2,634.
We are working with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Health Education England and the profession to increase 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 with 4,000 doctors accepting a place this year, from 2,671 in 2014.