Primary Care 2024-03-05

2024-03-05

TAGS
Response quality

Questions & Answers

Q1 Partial Answer
Greg Smith Con
Mid Buckinghamshire
Context
The MP raised concerns about the adequacy and accessibility of primary care services for residents in his rural constituency.
What assessment has been made of the adequacy of primary care provision in rural communities? Rural areas often struggle with access to GP appointments, especially as local surgeries close during the pandemic. How is the government ensuring that rural communities receive adequate and accessible primary care?
We have met our manifesto commitment to deliver a record extra 50 million GP appointments annually. Our primary care recovery plan addresses increased GP access and expands community pharmacy services nationwide with Pharmacy First. Our NHS dentist reform plan also allocates resources for 2.5 million appointments, targeting rural and coastal communities.
Assessment & feedback
The assessment of adequacy in specific rural settings was not addressed
Response accuracy
Q2 Partial Answer
Context
A developer committed to building a GP surgery but now questions its viability, leading to concerns about access to primary care in the area.
Frontier Estates committed to building a GP surgery as part of the Stortford Fields development. However, citing inflated build costs, it now questions the viability of the plans despite months of negotiations and efforts by local NHS to find a solution. Will my right hon. Friend work with colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ensure that Frontier really engages with the process and builds the surgery it promised?
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the enormous amount of work she has done in her constituency to secure that community diagnostic centre. We have rolled out some 160 or so of those centres across England— we want to do more—and they are supplying some 6 million tests and scans for patients across England.
Assessment & feedback
The specific issue regarding the GP surgery was not addressed, instead focusing on other community diagnostic centers
Response accuracy
Q3 Partial Answer
Greg Smith Con
Mid Buckinghamshire
Context
Since the closure of the Long Crendon surgery during the pandemic, patients have been displaced to nearby villages for GP appointments. There are plans to build a new health center but funding is needed.
Rural communities need local, easily accessible primary care. Since Long Crendon surgery closed during the pandemic, patients in that village and surrounding villages have been displaced, mainly to Brill and Thame, for GP appointments. For the vulnerable and those without private cars, the absence of regular bus services can mean an unaffordable £25 at least in taxis to see a GP. I have raised many times an innovative approach to building a new health centre in Long Crendon by the parish council, which has the land and the agreement by the ICB for the rent to put Unity Health in there—we just need the money to build it. Will my right hon. Friend break down every barrier to help us get that health centre built in Long Crendon?
Again, I very much admire the effort and determination that my hon. Friend is showing to stand up for his constituents. He will know that sadly I am constrained from commenting on individual cases, but what I do know is that the innovation he is showing alongside his parish council—and, indeed, I would hope, his local integrated care board—is the approach we want to adopt across our rural and coastal communities to ensure that they, too, have the access to primary care that we all expect.
Assessment & feedback
Did not provide specific assistance or funding details for Long Crendon health center
Response accuracy
Q4 Partial Answer
Valerie Vaz Lab
Walsall and Bloxwich
Context
The use of physician associates has raised concerns about the quality of patient care, leading to questions about their necessity.
Equal access to primary care is so important, but the use of physician associates is downright dangerous. Does the Secretary of State agree that patients have the right to see a qualified GP and not be fobbed off with a two-tier primary care system?
I understand the concerns—we have seen them in the media—but, please, we in this House have a responsibility to our constituents and to professionals working in healthcare, including our clinicians and physician associates. In fact, physician associates have been working in the NHS for some two decades. They are there to work with doctors to assist them, freeing up doctors' time to focus on the tasks that only they are qualified to do. We have been very careful to listen to the concerns raised, which is why we recently announced intentions to regulate them.
Assessment & feedback
Did not address the concern about a two-tier primary care system directly
Response accuracy
Q5 Partial Answer
Context
The MP is concerned about the limited allocation of funds to primary care and the suggestion that it should raid hospital budgets.
My constituents are fed up with battling to see a GP. I have been working hard across party lines with local councillors and the ICB, but I was surprised to hear from the Prime Minister in response to a question last week that only £2 million was allocated to my ICB for primary care, and that it should raid its hospital refurbishment budget instead. Could the Secretary of State advise me which part of the much needed hospital investment should be overlooked to compensate for the failure to invest in primary care locally?
Again, it is for integrated care boards to assess the needs of their area. If there are concerns about access to primary care, we are keen to give them the autonomy to make decisions about how they spend their budget. We have set expectations of integrated care boards in a couple of respects—in particular, we expect them to use the money that we have provided for dental care and we have set clear expectations that integrated care boards will introduce at least one women's health hub in their area this year.
Assessment & feedback
Did not provide specific advice on prioritizing primary care funding over hospital investments
Response accuracy
Q6 Partial Answer
Context
The MP is concerned about the delay in delivering digital primary care consultation tools promised by the government.
While we are talking about the recovery of primary care and the Secretary of State is at the Dispatch Box, the recovering access plan released last May talked about high-quality online consultation, text messaging services and online booking tools. They were due in July, but that became August and then December, and I understand that it has now been delayed indefinitely due to a claim made against NHS England in what is a £300 million project. That delay is hitting access to primary care. Will the Secretary of State update the House?
We are determined to bring not just primary care but the whole NHS up to speed with technology. We are firm advocates of the idea that technology can help free clinicians' time and ensure that they are spending time looking at their patients rather than at computer screens. In primary care, we are working to ensure the digital telephony services that have played such a critical role in providing those 50 million additional appointments, as I described. I will take away my hon. Friend's points, and look into them carefully.
Assessment & feedback
Did not provide specific update on timeline or status of digital services implementation
Response accuracy
Q7 Partial Answer
Daisy Cooper Lib Dem
St Albans
Context
The MP has been writing to the Primary Care Minister about outdated Treasury rules that threaten to force GP surgeries out of city centre locations. Her ICB claims these rules prevent them from using capital funding.
I have been corresponding with the Primary Care Minister, and her predecessors, about urgently needing to protect general practice locations in city centres from outdated Treasury rules that potentially force them to move to ring-road locations. The Minister's latest reply suggested that the ICB could use capital funding to pay for new premises, but my ICB claims that that is against the rules. Would she and her officials please urgently meet me and my local ICB to bottom out what the rules are and urgently protect our city centre GP locations?
I will ask the relevant Minister to write to the hon. Lady.
Assessment & feedback
Meeting with Daisy Cooper and her local ICB to clarify rules
Response accuracy
Q8 Partial Answer
Wes Streeting Lab
Ilford North
Context
The MP criticizes the Conservative government for cutting GPs since 2015, leading to difficulties in accessing appointments. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has described upcoming NHS funding as the biggest cut since the 1970s.
Despite slogging their guts out, GPs are struggling because this Government have cut 2,000 GPs since 2015, making it even harder for patients to get an appointment. Given that, why has the Government decided that the NHS needs what the Institute for Fiscal Studies has described as the biggest funding cut since the 1970s?
We have delivered on our manifesto commitment for 50 million more general practice appointments per year, with 363.8 million booked in the last 12 months. That compares with 312 million delivered in the 12 months to December 2019. About 62,000 more appointments were delivered per working day last December, excluding covid vaccinations.
Assessment & feedback
The decision behind the biggest funding cut since the 1970s
We Will Not Comment On Fiscal Events The Day Before They Occur
Response accuracy