Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will release national messaging for patients on the difference between routine and urgent core-hours requirements for GPs.

As part of the 2025/26 GP Contract, NHS England published You and Your General Practice (YYGP) guidance. YYGP has been developed to help patients understand what to expect from their general practice (GP) and how they can get the best from their GP team. The guidance is based on the contractual requirements that all contractors providing essential GP services must meet and is intended to make patients more informed and to increase practice accountability to patients, with the aim of improving services and patient engagement.

GPs are required to provide a link on their website to the NHS England YYGP document, which can also be found here on the NHS England website at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/you-and-your-general-practice/

The guidance will remain under review and will continue to be updated to reflect changes made to GP contracts.

Anyone who requires treatment that a GP or healthcare professional regards as an emergency, or as immediately necessary, should be provided that treatment free of charge, regardless of whether they are registered with a GP.

There is no set list on what treatment a GP should provide in an emergency, as it is up to the GP’s clinical judgement to decide the correct treatment at the time.