Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to help ensure that increases in the number of GPs in training results in a sustained increase in the number of qualified GPs.

The Government has committed to training thousands more general practitioners (GPs) and has increased the number of available GP training places by an additional 250 from September 2025. This brings the total number of GP training places to 4,250 per year.

Since October 2024, we have funded primary care networks with an additional £160 million to recruit recently qualified GPs through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme. Over 2,900 individual GPs have now been recruited, preventing them graduating into unemployment.

We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in GPs to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest cash increase in over a decade and will facilitate the recruitment of GPs. The 8.9% boost to the GP Contract in 2025/26 is greater than the 5.8% growth to the NHS budget as a whole.

In spring 2026, we will publish a 10 Year Workforce Plan which will ensure that staff will be better treated, have better training, more fulfilling roles, and hope for the future, so they can achieve more.