Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what long-term workforce plan he has in place to increase (a) full time equivalent GPs of all contract types, (b) practice nurses and (c) other primary care clinical staff.

The Department is working with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Health Education England and the profession to increase the general practice workforce in England. This includes measures to increase recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession and encourage them to return to practice. In December 2021, there were an additional 1,672 full time equivalent doctors in general practice compared to December 2019.

The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) enables Primary Care Networks to employ a range of roles for 100% reimbursement of salary and on-costs. Through the GP Contract framework, NHS England and NHS Improvement have committed to review the effectiveness of the ARRS by 2023. We are currently on schedule to increase the number of registered nurses by 50,000, with nursing numbers 29,000 higher in January 2022 compared to September 2019. This commitment will be achieved through increased domestic and international recruitment and improved retention.