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 that rural communities' access to a local GP surgery is maintained.

Capitation payments to practices include a formula weighting for rurality. The Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme offers a £20,000 salary supplement to attract general practitioner trainees to work in areas of the country where training places have been unfilled for a number of years, such as rural locations. Additionally, NHS England and NHS Improvement have allowed commissioners to waive the Primary Care Network (PCN) minimum population where a PCN serves a community with a low population density across a large rural and remote area.