Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they propose any additional financial support to general practitioner practices in rural areas.

The Carr-Hill resource allocation formula is used to calculate the global sum, which is the basic payment made to all GP practices. This is based on the practice population and is weighted for factors that influence relative needs and costs.

These factors include rurality, which is measured by the average distance patients have to travel to a practice and the population density of the area from which a practice draws its patients.