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 ensure there are appropriate GP training facilities in York.

The York general practitioner (GP) specialty training scheme is well established, respected, evaluated and popular with those choosing to train to become GPs. It attracted higher than regional-average fill rates in the last round of GP recruitment. The scheme has three experienced training programme directors (TPD) that are responsible for the support and delivery of teaching and training for trainees at weekly group sessions, as well as the planning and delivery of training rotations in the area, and support for local GP trainers. The ratio of TPD sessions to trainees is higher than the average for Yorkshire and the Humber.

The training scheme usually operates from postgraduate education centre at York District Hospital. There have been recent renovations to this facility and there is a current period of adaptation and re-organisation, which Health Education England is supporting locally, to make the facilities ideal for all parties.

GP trainers are responsible for the day-to-day supervision of trainee GPs who are on placements in practices. In the year August 2016 to July 2017 there were 34 headcount GP trainers linked to the York GP Speciality Training Programme. Data held prior to this period is not comparable.