Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 3035 to Question 26149, if his Department will give direction to integrated care boards to provide new GP surgeries where GP to patient ratios are not keeping track with population growth.

The Primary Care Utilisation & Modernisation Fund was announced during the 2024 Spending Review and provides new capital funding of £102 million to support improvements in the primary care estate.

Each general practice (GP) is required to provide services to meet the reasonable needs of their patients. There is no NHS England recommendation for how many patients should be assigned to a practice or individual general practitioner, or any set ratio of GP doctors or other practice staff to patients. Practices and commissioners consider how all staff can respond to their communities’ health needs, through both GP doctors and the range of health professionals in GP teams who work in practices and primary care networks.

The National Health Service has a statutory duty to ensure there are sufficient medical services, including general practice, in each local area, with funding and commissioning reflecting population growth and demographic changes. As commissioners of primary care, integrated care boards (ICBs) are best placed to understand the needs of the local population, and we expect them to act if services are not meeting the reasonable needs of their patients. ICBs may consider that setting up a new practice can be patients’ interest, for example where current practices are unlikely to be able to absorb increasing demand and where Care Quality Commission inspections indicate that the quality of services is inadequate.