Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of closure of NHS walk-in centres on accident and emergency departments and GP practices.

Since 2007, the local National Health Service has been responsible for walk-in-centres (WiCs), it is for local commissioners to decide on the availability of these services.

Over a million more people will be over 65 at the end of the Parliament than there were at the beginning. We are experiencing an unprecedented demographic challenge in which people are living much longer with more complex needs and this is putting the NHS under significantly more pressure.

NHS England are working with clinical commissioning groups and urgent and emergency care providers to ensure that the local health economies have plans in place to ensure that patient have access to a full range of urgent and emergency care services, including WiCs where appropriate.

The Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund has invested £50 million into pilot schemes aiming to improve access to general practitioner services. Next year, a further £100 million will be invested into a second wave of the scheme.