Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether access metrics will be reviewed to ensure they support relationship-based care.

This Government values continuity in general practice (GP) and there is an incentive to identify those who would benefit from continuity in the GP contract, but this isn't inconsistent with efforts to improve access, such as via the 24 hour access target where urgent treatment is required.

We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in general practice to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest cash increase in over a decade. The 8.9% boost to the GP contract in 2025/26 is greater than the 5.8% growth to the NHS budget as a whole.

Over ten million more GP appointments have been delivered in the 12 months to September 2025 compared to the same period last year, building capacity for continuity of care and improving access so that patients can be seen when they need to be in primary care.

In the 2025/26 GP contract, a new domain was introduced into the Capacity and Access Improvement Payment which incentivises primary care networks to risk stratify their patients in accordance with need including to identify those that would benefit most from continuity of care.