Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of GPs needed to eliminate any shortfall in primary health care.

The Department set up Health Education England (HEE) to deliver a better health and healthcare workforce for England. HEE is responsible for ensuring a secure workforce supply for the future balancing need against demand, taking into account factors such as the age profile of the existing workforce, the impact of technology, and new drugs.

The Department has recognised the need to increase the general practitioner (GP) workforce and between September 2010 and September 2013, the number of full time equivalent GPs has risen by 1,051. Additionally, the Department has included in the HEE mandate a requirement that “HEE will ensure that 50% of trainees completing foundation level training enter GP training programmes by 2016”. This will support future growth in GP numbers.

Further work is being undertaken by HEE to improve applications and fill rate in to GP training to support the mandate target of 3,250 appointments into GP training by 2016 in England. This includes a review of the GP recruitment process, developing a pre-GP year to give exposure to prospective GP applicants of the specialty and careers advice for foundation doctors and medical students.

In recognition of the contribution the GP workforce makes in the National Health Service, HEE will also undertake additional work on GP recruitment and retention, return to practice and reducing attrition rates, all of which will play a part in increasing the GP workforce.

Additionally, the Department commissioned the Centre for Workforce Intelligence to conduct an in-depth review of the GP workforce. The report will be published shortly and will build on the preliminary findings published in March 2013.

The review will assess:

- current workforce numbers to forecast supply;

- key drivers affecting workforce demand; and

- regional variations in demand.

The review will make recommendations for future workforce planning. It will also address issues such as GP workload and the 2016 recruitment target and beyond, as well as wider issues around primary care delivery.

Transforming Primary Care, which was published in April 2014 by the Department and NHS England and set out actions being taken towards the vision of personalised, proactive care. Transforming Primary Care made the following commitment;

To ensure that we have a workforce ready to meet the challenges of the future, we are planning to make available around 10,000 primary and community health and care professionals by 2020, in support of the shift in how care will be provided'.