Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure GPs are accessible to patients.

Through the Prime Minister's Challenge Fund, more than 7.5 million people in England will start to be offered increased access to local general practitioner (GP) services, including seven-day opening and appointments outside of office hours. The Fund is supporting over 1,110 practices covering every region as part of a pilot scheme.

The PM Challenge Fund is for one year and patients are expected to see positive changes from services from June/July onwards. An interim evaluation report is due in November this year. The full and final report is expected to be published in the early part of 2015-16. There will be a rolling programme of feedback on the pilots with case studies available from the summer onwards to help spread best practice across the country.

In addition, the new GP contract introduced a new Enhanced Service, which includes a commitment to same day phone consultations with a professional in the GP surgery where necessary for the most at risk in the population.