Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the increase in the number of physiotherapists that will be working in primary care networks over the next three years; and what steps his Department is taking to achieve that increase.

The NHS Long Term Plan made a clear commitment to the future of general practice, with primary and community care set to receive at least £4.5 billion more in real terms a year by 2023/24, meaning spending on these services will grow faster than the rising National Health Service budget. Since the launch of the Long Term Plan, NHS England and the British Medical Association’s General Practitioners (GP) Committee have agreed a five-year GP (General Medical Services) contract framework from 2019/20. The new contract framework will be essential to deliver the ambitions set out in the NHS Long Term Plan through strong general practice services.

The contract included funding for the new Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, in Primary Care Networks (PCNs). PCNs will be guaranteed funding for an up to estimated 20,000 additional staff by 2023/24. This funds new roles for which there is both credible supply and demand. The scheme will meet a recurrent 70% of the costs of additional clinical pharmacists, physician associates, first contact physiotherapists, and first contact community paramedics; and 100% of the costs of additional social prescribing link workers.