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Written question asked by Samantha Niblett (Labour) on Monday, 6 July 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 9 July 2026 (named day). It was answered by Stephen Kinnock (Labour) on Thursday, 9 July 2026 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

General Practitioners

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the GP contract changes on (a) patient safety, (b) primary‑care capacity and (c) workload transferred to general practice prior to its implementation on 1 April 2026.

Answer

The Department and NHS England considered the potential risks, benefits, and wider impact of the policy changes as part of standard policy-development processes and Equalities Impact Assessments.

No immediate negative impacts have been identified from these policies. If any are identified at a later stage, the Department will consider and review them. The changes are intended to improve access to general practices (GPs), build workforce capacity, and strengthen prevention. They include measures to increase GP capacity, including a new practice-level GP reimbursement scheme and greater flexibility to recruit GPs through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme.

We are routinely collecting data on workforce, patient access, and service use to inform the assessment of impacts.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
16192
Session
2026-27
Subjects
General practitioners
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk