Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase the availability of GP appointments; and if he will make a statement.

On 22 September 2022, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which contains measures to assist people to make an informed choice on their general practitioner (GP) practice, book an appointment more easily, benefit from more care options and increase the diversity of general practice teams. This aims to increase the availability of appointment types in England.

We are investing at least £1.5 billion to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024 through increasing and diversifying the workforce. General practice teams include a range of other health professionals in addition to GPs, to respond to the needs of patients and we are on schedule to recruit an additional 26,000 primary care staff.