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 ensure patients can access their GP.

On 14 October, we published ‘Our plan for improving access for patients and supporting general practice’ which included an additional investment of £250 million in a Winter Access Fund to improve the availability of general practitioner (GP) practices and increase the number of face-to-face appointments, while also investing in technology to make it easier for patients to see or speak to their GP.

We have committed additional funding to NHS England to implement the adoption of cloud-based telephony technology across all practices. These systems can benefit patients by making more phone lines available and providing automated queueing.