Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to increase the recruitment of GPs in the London Borough of Newham.

Clinical commissioning groups across east London are working together on a transformation plan to actively recruit more general practitioners (GPs), to retain existing staff and to make the best use of the wider primary care workforce available. The Newham GP Federation has recently established a pilot programme to help retain as many GPs as possible who are considering leaving the profession or reducing their time providing primary care. GPs will be encouraged to work in areas of special interest, cover for sickness, provide training support and adopt a new approach to working collectively across an area.

The Government has committed to an extra 5,000 doctors in general practice by 2020, as part of a wider increase to the total workforce in general practice of 10,000.