Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help GPs reduce the backlog of patient appointments.

On 14 October the Department and NHS England announced a new £250 million Winter Access Fund to assist patients with urgent care needs, with a focus on increasing capacity to boost urgent same-day care and taking account of patient preferences. We have also committed to create an extra 50 million appointments a year by increasing and diversifying the workforce. This will mean improved access to general practice for patients and more support for staff to provide a wider range of care options for patients outside of hospital.

NHS England and Health Education England are working with the profession to increase the size of the general practice workforce in England. This includes measures to boost recruitment, address the reasons why doctors are leaving the profession, and encourage them to return to practice.