Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of trends in NHS recruitment and retention on the ability of Hanway Medical Centre to continue to provide services to residents of the Charles Dickens area of Portsmouth.

The Government has committed to growing the workforce by 6,000 more doctors in general practice and 6,000 more primary care professionals, such as physiotherapists and pharmacists by 2024/25. This is on top of the additional 20,000 primary care professionals NHS England are providing funding towards by 2023/24 in Primary Care Networks. Growing the workforce will mean bigger teams of staff providing a wider range of care options for patients and will free up more time for doctors to focus on those with more complex needs. This, alongside additional support and increasing the use of technology in general practice will create an extra 50 million appointments a year by 2024/25 and improve patient access to primary care services.

NHS Portsmouth Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has advised that it has been aware of the intention of two general practitioners to retire for some time at the Hanway Practice and is working with the Hanway Practice to ensure that patients continue to receive high-quality medical care. The CCG further advised an engagement process is underway to support the development of a formal merger proposal and it expects to receive the proposal from the two practices concerned before the end of February.