Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he plans to provide incentives to medical students to enter general practice.

Health Education England (HEE) has implemented a range of improvements to increase the number of general practitioner (GP) training places to 3,250 each year. In 2017 3,157 new starters were recruited to training posts – this is the highest number of GP trainees ever.

NHS England, HEE, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners have been working together to increase the number of medical students choosing to enter specialty GP training.

NHS England is funding a £20,000 salary supplement (Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme) to attract GP trainees to work in areas of the country where GP training places have been unfilled for a number of years. In 2018 up to 200 places will be offered.

The scheme is open to GP trainees committed to working for three years in areas identified by the GP National Recruitment Office as having the hardest to recruit to training places in England. GP training directors identified those areas which had the lowest fill rates consistently over the last four years.