Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of GP appointments were held face-to-face in West Yorkshire in (a) 2019 and (b) 2023.

In 2019, 79.7% of all general practitioner (GP) appointments were face-to-face across England. 84.5% were face-to-face in the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) in the same period. In 2023, 72.2% of appointments were face-to-face in November 2023 in the West Yorkshire ICB and 67.9% were face-to-face nationally. GP appointment data for December 2023 has not yet been published, thus we are unable to provide a figure for all of 2023.

The National Health Service is clear that GPs must provide face-to-face appointments, alongside remote consultations, and patients’ input into consultation type should be sought and their preferences for face-to-face care respected, unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary.