Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to make it easier for people to receive a GP appointment.

The Government has committed to ensuring that by 2019 everyone in the country has easier and more convenient access to general practice services. This includes ensuring that access is available at peak times of demand, including bank holidays and across the Easter, Christmas and New Year periods.

The latest National Health Service planning guidance, published by NHS England in February 2018, brought forward the delivery timescale to 1 October 2018, to ensure additional capacity is in place ahead of winter 2018.

As part of the General Practice Forward View, published by NHS England in 2016, a number of initiatives were put in place to support practices and other providers to improve access to general practice services, building on successful approaches piloted through the GP Access Fund schemes. This includes delivering services at scale with better use of digital technology, using a wider workforce and enabling self-care and direct access to other services.