Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the average length of time people wait between initial contact with a GP surgery and seeing a GP (a) in York and (b) nationally; and whether he is taking steps to help shorten that time.

No specific estimate has been made. However, NHS England and NHS Improvement are offering practices an interim telephony solution to access additional outgoing telephone lines. This provides additional capacity for incoming for incoming calls and communication tools to ensure patients are aware of how to access services.