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Whole Day Download the Hansard Record of the Entire Day in PDF Format. PDF File, 1 Tuesday Volume 670 28 January 2020 No. 17 HOUSE OF COMMONS OFFICIAL REPORT PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (HANSARD) Tuesday 28 January 2020 © Parliamentary Copyright House of Commons 2020 This publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright/. 651 28 JANUARY 2020 652 increasingly patients at GP surgeries can be treated by House of Commons nurses—and increasingly enabling people, especially those who find it difficult to travel, to use technology to get Tuesday 28 January 2020 the treatment they need. Sally-Ann Hart: Hastings has a shortage of salaried The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock GPs and GP services—locum GPs are available, at the right price. Will the Secretary of State please outline PRAYERS what steps he is taking to increase the number of salaried, rather than locum, GPs and GP services in Hastings and Rye? [MR SPEAKER in the Chair] Matt Hancock: My hon. Friend is right to ask. It is BUSINESS BEFORE QUESTIONS incredibly important that we get the right number of GPs, not least to reduce the amount spent on locums, MONKEN HADLEY COMMON BILL who can be very expensive and often do not know the local population as well as salaried GPs. Her local Bill read a Second time and committed. clinicalcommissioninggroupisdevelopinganew-to-practice fellowship in Hastings for GPs starting out in practice in order to encourage more doctors into practice and Oral Answers to Questions then to support them. It is also working with primary care networks so that more can become GP trainers and take on students. We are expanding the numbers going into GP training—there were record numbers last year—but HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE I want the numbers to go up again and to make sure that Hastings gets the GPs it needs. The Secretary of State was asked— Richard Fuller: As part of the council area with the Access to GPs second-largest population increase in the country, the people of Biggleswade, Sandy, Arlesey and Stotfold are 1. Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con): What steps he is at their wits’ end over access to GP appointments. What special attention will the Secretary of State pay to those taking to improve access to GPs. [900427] areas of large population growth to make sure that 4. Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con): What increases in housing are matched by increased access to GPs? steps he is taking to improve access to GPs. [900430] 6. Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con): Matt Hancock: That is an incredibly important point. What steps he is taking to improve access to GP surgeries We have a manifesto commitment to ensure that where in North East Bedfordshire constituency. [900432] there is new housing there is also new primary care. Just as a new housing estate will often require a new primary 11. Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) school and new transport links, so we need to put in the (Con): What steps he is taking to improve access to GPs as well. GPs. [900437] Stuart Anderson: I thank the Secretary of State for 20. Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con): What steps he is visiting Tettenhall Wood surgery in my constituency taking to improve access to GPs. [900446] during the general election campaign. Will he work with me to increase the numbers of patient appointments The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care back up to where they were before? (Matt Hancock): With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will answer Questions 1, 4, 6, 11 and 20 together. Matt Hancock: Yes. My hon. Friend has already [Interruption.] General practice is a popular subject. become an incredibly strong voice for Wolverhampton, We will create an extra 50 million appointments a and it was a pleasure to visit Tettenhall medical practice, year in primary care so that everyone can go to the GP which has joined with other GP practices to form a when they need to. primary care network, which I hope will strengthen its resilience and enable it to provide extended access to Tom Randall: There are many families with children appointments, which is what he is campaigning for. I in Gedling. What is being done to ensure that patients, am pleased, too, with the extra 16,000 appointments in particularly families with young children, can access Wolverhampton in the last quarter. As this shows, we GP appointments when they need them? are driving up the number of appointments, but we also appreciate, understand and feel the frustration people Matt Hancock: Obviously this is an incredibly important feel when they cannot get decent access to GP appointments. subject, and I know the frustration many families feel at not being able to access a GP appointment when they Laura Farris: Changes to pension contributions mean need it. We have a whole-scale programme of work to that some senior GPs, including in Newbury, are being improve access. This includes recruiting 6,000 more hit with extra tax charges if they work overtime, which GPs and 26,000 primary care staff other than GPs— is leading to the paradoxical situation of GPs paying to 653 Oral Answers 28 JANUARY 2020 Oral Answers 654 work and so reducing their hours or taking early retirement. James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op): Hanwell What steps is the Secretary of State’s Department taking health centre, which works hard to serve many of my to address this situation? constituents, has told me that it has been trying to appoint a salaried GP for three years, as well as a large Matt Hancock: Tax is, of course, a matter for the number of nurses. There is generally a four-week wait Treasury, and the Chancellor would not be thrilled if I for an appointment, although the centre has provided announced tax policy in the middle of health questions, 75 more appointments to cope with demand. Under the tempting as that may be. However, we have been working Secretary of State’s plans, when will those waiting times with the Treasury, and also with the Academy of Medical come down? Royal Colleges, the British Medical Association, employers in the NHS and others, to deliver on our manifesto Matt Hancock: This is precisely why we need to commitment to sort this out. recruit more GPs, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and across the country, and also recruit more other Mr Speaker: Jonathan Ashworth. clinicians to general practice. [HON.MEMBERS: “How?”] I will tell you how, Mr Speaker. In the first instance, the Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op): record numbers of GPs in training will help, but that is You rather surprised me then, Mr Speaker! not the entirety of the plan. I urge the hon. Gentleman The Secretary of State mentioned primary care networks. to get on board and support general practice. As he will know, two weeks ago GPs rejected the new service specifications in those networks. This has been Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab): In 2015 the Secretary of described as a debacle, and as leading to more red tape State’s predecessor promised 5,000 more GPs by 2020. and taking GPs away from patients. If the Secretary of The Secretary of State repeated that promise when he State is going to fix these contracts, can he tell us how took over the job, but my constituents are finding it he is going to do it—or is he content to see more GPs increasingly difficult to get a GP appointment within walk out of primary care networks before they have three weeks. Will the Secretary of State now apologise even got off the ground? to everyone who is waiting for failing to keep his promises? Matt Hancock: Primary care networks have been an Matt Hancock: The commitment that we have made incredibly successful innovation, covering the whole is that we will have 6,000 more GPs and 26,000 other country and allowing practices to work together. Of clinical staff in general practice. That is the commitment course, the negotiations with the BMA over the GP that we have made, and that is the commitment on contract are always tough: they have been in every year which we will deliver. in which they have taken place. The hon. Gentleman will understand why I want to get the best possible Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD): In value for the money that the NHS spends, but I also rural communities such as mine, GP surgeries often want to see a successful conclusion to this negotiation, serve huge geographical areas with relatively small patient and we are working with the BMA to that end. numbers. Coniston, for example, has a roll of about 900 patients, yet the next nearest surgery is two lakes Jonathan Ashworth: The Secretary of State describes away. Will the Secretary of State commit to establishing primary care networks as a great success, but a local a strategic small surgeries fund to ensure that small medical committee in Buckinghamshire and Berkshire surgeries in rural communities remain sustainable for has just warned that they will cost each practice £100,000 the long term? more. Having failed to deliver the 5,000 extra doctors that the Government previously promised, having failed Matt Hancock: The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly to recruit more GPs in the poorest areas, having now important point. General practice, where 90% of all bungled the negotiations over this contract, and having NHS appointments take place, needs to reach every failed to fix the pension tax changes for which he was part of this country, including his beautiful constituency, partly responsible, how on earth can the Secretary of which is, as he says, very sparse.
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