Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We are very pleased with the progress that is being made in Herefordshire and in many other areas, and we are looking at how to maintain funding for those areas. Already, 16 million people are benefiting from enhanced access to GPs in the evenings and at weekends, and we would not want to see the clock being turned back on that.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Today I received a letter from the chair of Slough’s clinical commissioning group, in which he bemoaned the fact that GP practices were making 95% of patient contacts yet receiving only 8% of the NHS’s resources. He also claimed that there had been a 30% reduction in GP partners’ incomes in the past five years, and said that more and more GPs in Slough were turning to private practice. I have noticed that they are also resisting the creation of new GP practices. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that under-doctored areas such as mine get more GPs?

[Mr Hunt]

First, may I ask the right hon. Lady to congratulate, on my behalf, GPs in Slough, who have benefited from the Prime Minister’s challenge fund? Alongside a number of other schemes, it has had a significant impact on reducing emergency admissions in her area. The answer to the point she makes is that we are investing an extra £8 billion in the NHS over the course of this Parliament—it is £10 billion when we include the money going in this year. We have said that we want more of that money to go into general practice, to reverse the historical underfunding of general practice, which I completely agree needs to be reversed.