Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve recruitment and retention in (a) GP services and (b) dentistry services in Portsmouth South constituency.

We are working with NHS England to increase the general practice (GP) workforce in England, including Portsmouth South. 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 several new schemes, alongside continued support for existing recruitment and retention schemes for the general practice workforce.

To boost recruitment, we have increased the number of GP training places. Last year, we saw 4,032 trainees accepting a place on GP training, up from 2,671 in 2014.  The number of training places will rise to 6,000 by 2031/32, with the first 500 new places available from September 2025.

We are also taking steps to address the dental workforce challenges across the country. As set out in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, we are going to increase dentistry training places by 40% so that there are over 1,100 places by 2031/32. We know that we must go further and that is why we are working with the sector and NHSE to consider further wider-reaching changes to improve the system.