Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the challenges in the recruitment of (a) General Practitioners and (b) GP nurses in (i) North Cornwall constituency and (ii) rural areas.

We acknowledge the urgent challenge of ensuring that rural areas such as those in North Cornwall have the resources needed to service their patients, and to ensure that patients can access primary healthcare. To address this, we are increasing capacity in general practice by recruiting primary care workforce staff such as nurses and general practitioners through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, ensuring the necessary workforce is in place to provide integrated, patient-centred services.