Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress she has made on retaining more GPs.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
There were 2,799 more full time equivalent (FTE) doctors working in general practice (GP) in December 2023, compared to December 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. NHS England has made available a number of retention schemes, to boost the GP workforce.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to have discussions with the General Dental Council on (a) reforms to the overseas registration exam and (b) steps the Council can take to (i) make use of the new powers granted to it by the Government and (ii) increase capacity of the dentistry workforce.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The Department meets regularly with the General Dental Council (GDC) to discuss registration processes for dentists with overseas qualifications. We welcome the GDC’s recent announcements that it is increasing the number of places available to sit the Overseas Registration Exam (ORE). The GDC has tripled the number of places on sittings of ORE Part 1 for all sittings from August 2023 to the end of 2024. The GDC has also added an additional sitting of ORE Part 2 in 2024, bringing the total number of sittings up to four.
Earlier this year, the GDC carried out a public consultation on its proposals for international registration routes for dentists which include further increasing the capacity of the ORE while developing broader policy on international registration. The consultation also called for evidence to inform longer term plans for the assessment of international qualifications and registration, including the potential future structure of the ORE, and alternative routes to recognition that may enable overseas-qualified dentists to join the GDC’s register more quickly. The GDC will be publishing the outcome of its consultation shortly.
The Department will continue to work with the GDC to ensure overseas registration processes are optimised.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to improve patient access to GP appointments.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
We recognise that despite the hard work of general practice (GP) teams, some patients are still struggling to access care in a timely way. That is why we have published our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care. The plan has two central ambitions: to tackle the 8am rush and reduce the number of people struggling to contact their practice, and for patients to know on the day they contact their practice how their request will be managed.
We will achieve this by rolling out new digital tools and telephone systems which can help practices to better match their capacity to patient demand, backed by £240 million in retargeted funding. The plan also includes further measures to empower patients to do more themselves, cut bureaucracy for GPs and build capacity to deliver more appointments; and we are investing at least £1.5 billion to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024 by increasing and diversifying the workforce.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take with Cabinet colleagues to help support people with obsessive compulsive disorder in (a) the workplace and (b) other public settings.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We are continuing to work across Government to address the social, economic and environmental causes of mental ill health. We are currently working with stakeholders to develop a tool which will potentially better support policymakers across Whitehall to examine the impact of their proposals on mental health, including obsessive compulsive disorder.