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 potential implications for its policies of the recommendations of the Tackling the GP Work Crisis report by the Royal College of General Practitioners.

We welcome the findings from the Royal College of General Practitioners’ report on Tackling the GP workload crisis. Many of the recommendations align closely with our ongoing commitment to fixing the front door of the National Health Service by cutting red tape and ensuring general practitioners (GPs) can spend more time treating patients.

The 10-Year Health Plan sets out our commitment to delivering the recommendations of the Red Tape Challenge, including making improvements at the interface between primary and secondary care. These recommendations also highlight our ambition to improve customer service and experience through better patient communication, support, and navigation, as well as strengthening underpinning infrastructure.

The report also mentions simplifying incentives such as Quality Outcomes Frameworks (QOF), which for the 2025/26 GP Contract year, was streamlined significantly, with 32 out of the 76 indicators retired to reduce the administrative burden for practices. For the 2026/27 GP Contract year, QOF remains streamlined with 43 indicators.

We are continuing to work across the Government to better understand where additional burdens are being placed on GPs and, where possible, to remove unnecessary requirements and improve ways of working.