Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of additional GPs that will be recruited by 2023.

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

We are working with NHS England to increase the GP 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 recently published the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, which sets out the steps the National Health Service and its partners need to take to deliver an NHS workforce, including GPs, that meets the changing needs of the population over the next 15 years. It will put the workforce on a sustainable footing for the long term.