Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce GP appointment waiting times.

With NHS England, we are making changes to provide more flexibility for practices to meet the needs of patients. We have invested £175 million via the GP Access Fund to commission 57 schemes across the country. In total 18 million patients in 2,500 practices have benefited from improved access to general practice.

The GP Access Fund is promoting greater innovation in how practices offer access. This could be, for example, through networks of practices offering shared clinics at evenings and weekends.

The first independent report on the national evaluation of wave one schemes looked at how schemes have provided more general practitioner appointments and expanded the type of patient appointments to improve patient and staff satisfaction. A second national evaluation report will be published soon with updated results.