Vital Signs: GP access

Briefing · Parliament

MPs and peers debate GP access funding, appointment rights and pressure on primary care as front door of NHS

1. 01The sharpest legislative dispute concerned a Liberal Democrat new clause in the Health Bill committee requiring the Secretary of State to establish, within six months, a patient right to a GP appointment within seven days, or 24 hours if urgent. Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat, North Shropshire) argued in the sixth sitting on 25 June that this would place GP access on the same footing as existing NHS constitution rights, while Karin Smyth (Labour, Bristol South) responded that 69% of patients were already seen within seven days and that a further statutory requirement was unnecessary, pointing to a 14% rise since 2024 in patients reporting it easy to contact their practice.
2. 02Ministers repeatedly cited the same headline figures in defence of the Government's record. Stephen Kinnock (Labour, Aberafan Maesteg) told a question session on GP partnership on 14 July that the Government had invested an extra £1.6 billion in general practice, recruited over 2,000 more GPs and delivered 12.7 million more appointments compared with the previous year, with 77% of patients now rating their experience as good; in the Primary Care: Non-digital Access session on 9 June he said satisfaction had risen from 61% to 75%. Baroness Merron (Labour) gave similar figures in the Lords healthcare debate on 25 June.
3. 03Critics argued that funding had not kept pace with demand. Dr Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat, Winchester) told the Health Bill tenth sitting on 2 July that less than 10% of the NHS budget was spent on primary care and that the proportion allocated to general practice had fallen to its lowest point in ten years, citing a Royal College of General Practitioners survey in which 62% of practice managers said lack of funding was a major barrier to hiring. Baroness Gerada (Crossbench) told the Lords debate on 25 June that the mantra of moving care into the community had not been accompanied by a simultaneous move of resources, people, infrastructure or estate.
4. 04A recurring theme across several debates was the link between poor GP access and pressure on emergency departments. Baroness Janke (Liberal Democrat) told the Lords on 25 June that 18% of A&E attendances, amounting to 4.5 million visits, occurred because no GP appointment was available, and cited a Royal College of Emergency Medicine report attributing around 15,860 patient deaths in A&E in 2025 to waits for care. Dr Simon Opher (Labour, Stroud) told the NHS Corridor Care debate on 8 July that improved GP access, including GP-led emergency assessment until 10 pm, was necessary to relieve pressure on A&E.
5. 05The question of GP representation in reformed system structures also arose. Edward Argar (Conservative, Melton and Syston) warned during the Health Bill thirteenth sitting on 7 July that removing general practice and primary care from integrated care board memberships would fragment links at a local level and silence an independent patient voice. Karin Smyth told the eighth sitting on 30 June that primary care practitioners would remain key sources of professional advice to ICBs under their existing duty, and that health and wellbeing boards were the appropriate forum for local primary care input.