Asked by: Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat - Esher and Walton)
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 to improve the (a) performance of and (b) patient experience at the GP practices in the bottom 5% of the 2024 GP Patient Survey.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know that general practices (GPs) are working hard to deliver for their patients, and are delivering more appointments than ever before, however we know that some patients are struggling to access the care they need, and GPs are struggling to deliver it.
The GP Contract requires NHS England to arrange an annual review of GP contractors’ performance against their contractual obligations. Integrated care boards also consider concerns or complaints raised by patients, and can take action where services are not meeting the needs of their local population.
Asked by: Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat - Esher and Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average GP practice patient list is; what the largest patient list was at a GP practice in 2023-4; and what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of GP list sizes on patient (a) experience and (b) outcomes.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Data on patients registered at a general practice (GP) is published on a monthly basis, and is as follows for 2023/24: at the beginning of 2023/24, 1 April 2023, the largest practice had 106,308 patients, and the median average practice had 8,383 patients; and at the end of 2023/24, 1 April 2024, the largest practice had 98,469 patients, and the median average practice had 8,620 patients.
NHS England has overall responsibility for ensuring that there are sufficient primary medical services to meet the reasonable requirements of patients throughout the country. To do so, they will contract providers, such as GPs, to provide these services. GPs are required to provide services to meet the reasonable needs of the patients registered at their practice. This includes making their own workforce plans, and so there is no Government recommendation for how many patients a GP should have assigned.
We expect commissioners to act if services are not meeting the reasonable needs of their patients. Under GP Contract regulations, practices can apply to their commissioner to close their patient list to new registrations for a period of time for a number of reasons, including workload and staffing considerations.
This data is taken from the Patients Registered at a GP Practice data set, from NHS England Digital. It should be noted that practices can operate across multiple sites or use a digital first approach, which can account for a particularly large patient list. Further information on the data set is available at the following link:
Asked by: Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat - Esher and Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average per-patient funding for GP practices was in (a) England and (b) NHS Surrey Heartlands in 2023-4.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This data is published annually by NHS England in the NHS Payments to General Practice Report and will be available in due course.