General Practitioners: Working Hours

(asked on 14th July 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many and what proportion of GP practices participating in the Prime Minister's Challenge Fund were already offering evening or weekend opening hours prior to their participation in that fund.


Answered by
Alistair Burt Portrait
Alistair Burt
This question was answered on 20th July 2015

36% of practices participating in wave one schemes (announced in October 2013) offered some form of weekday extended hours provision and 17% offered some form of weekend extended hours provision prior to participating in the Prime Minister’s GP Access Fund (formerly the PM Challenge Fund). NHS England is currently undertaking a baseline exercise for those practices participating in wave two (announced September 2014). We do not hold data on how many days a week these practices were offering extended hours, nor whether they offered routine appointments or reserved them for urgent care.

The Government is committed to improving access to general practitioner (GP) and primary care services. We have invested in the Prime Minister’s GP Access Fund to test improved and innovative access to GP services. This includes longer opening hours – such as evening and weekend hours – but also different ways of accessing services, for example telephone and Skype consultations. Across two waves of the Fund, 57 schemes will be set up covering over 2,500 practices. All schemes within the GP Access Fund are now offering some form of extended opening hours at evenings or weekends.

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