Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the number of GPs per 100,000 people in England since 2010.

The number of general practitioners (GPs) and clinical staff per 100,000 registered patients is available in the table attached for the years 2015-18 (headcount and full-time-equivalent (FTE)). Data is not included prior to 2015. GP locums are excluded as improvements have been made to GP locum recording methodology and figures are not comparable prior to December 2017.

The recently published 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 NHS budget. Since the launch of the Long Term Plan, NHS England and the British Medical Association’s General Practitioners 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.