Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of additional GPs that will be needed in (a) Merseyside and (b) Wirral by 2020.

The number of general practitioners (GPs) (headcount), excluding retainers, registrars and locums, for the North West, Merseyside and the Wirral is available in the attached table. Figures are not available for Wallasey. Due to changes in the data source, comparisons before and after 2015 should be treated with caution.

The General Practice Forward View, published in April 2016, committed to strengthening the general practice workforce and increasing the number of doctors in general practice by 5,000 full time equivalents.

NHS England Cheshire and Merseyside advises it has a number of schemes in place to increase the GP workforce. This includes international recruitment and GP retention programmes. There are currently seven GPs in the Wirral on the GP Retention Scheme which supports GPs to remain in practice who are only able to do a maximum of four clinical session per week and includes protected time for continuing professional development and educational support. NHS England Cheshire and Merseyside has also recently secured £323,000 additional funding for further retention schemes in the local area. In addition, the Wirral is being supported to develop a GP sessional register to encourage GPs who prefer locum working in the area to become part of the wider primary care team, with the intention that they will apply for permanent positions.