Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Government's commitment to recruit 6000 additional doctors in general practice, made in 2019, when he expects to have recruited all of those additional doctors.

We remain committed to growing the general practitioner (GP) workforce and number of doctors in general practice, the Government is determined to deliver this as soon as possible. There were nearly 2,000 more full time equivalent (FTE) doctors working in general practice in March 2023 compared to March 2019.

We are working with NHS England to increase the general practice workforce in England. This includes measures to boost recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession, and encourage them to return to practice.

NHS England has made available a number of retention schemes available to boost the general practice workforce. To boost recruitment, we have increased the number of GP training places. Last year, we saw the highest ever number of doctors accepting a place on GP training, a record 4,032 trainees, up from 2,671 in 2014.