Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what comparative assessment he has made of the availability of in-person GP appointments before the covid-19 outbreak and after the covid-19 lockdown restrictions have been eased.

Face to face appointments remained available throughout the pandemic and NHS England and NHS Improvement have been clear that practices must provide both in person and remote consultations.

Excluding COVID-19 vaccinations appointments, there were 1.30 million average appointments per working day in September 2021 compared to 1.26 million in September 2019, an increase of 3.5%. In September 2021, 60.8% of all appointments were face-to-face compared to 80.5% in September 2019. However, this was a 3.1% increase on August 2021 and the highest proportion of face-to-face appointments since March 2020.