Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of Government policies to tackle disparity in access to GP appointments in (a) Birmingham and (b) the West Midlands compared to the national average.

No specific assessment has been made. However, in the Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care System (ICS) area, there were 28,668 general practice appointments on average per working day in May 2022, excluding COVID-19 vaccinations. This is an increase of 7.9% from May 2021, compared to the national increase of 5.8% in the same period.

The proportion of face-to-face appointments in the Birmingham and Solihull ICS area was 74% in May 2022, excluding COVID-19 vaccinations. This compares to 45% in May 2021 and 64.1% nationally.

Birmingham and Solihull ICS, Coventry and Warwickshire ICS, Herefordshire and Worcestershire and the Black Country ICS are working with practices locally to improve patient access. This includes measures such as procuring cloud-based telephony solutions, participating in the Accelerate Access Improvement Programme, communications campaigns to explain the general practice services available and developing access hubs.