Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to assist GPs in tackling prioritisation and capacity challenges.

To help expand general practice capacity, we have made an additional £270 million available from November 2020 until September 2021 to ensure general practitioners (GPs) and their teams continue to support all patients. This funding is ring-fenced exclusively for use in general practice, for priorities including increasing GP numbers and capacity, identifying and supporting patients with ‘long’ COVID-19 and clinically extremely vulnerable patients.

Practices are being asked to opt into the vaccine booster scheme only if they can deliver business as usual services at the same time. Local commissioners must be satisfied that practices can continue to deliver core services as well as administer COVID-19 vaccines.