To ask the Minister of Health to detail the current advice to people seeking, but unable to secure, a face-to-face GP appointment.

I recognise how important it is that people can access GP services when they need to do so. GP practices are open and will continue to provide both face to face appointments and alternative consultation options for patients as appropriate.

GP services have been under increasing pressure since before the pandemic. Telephone consultations have helped to manage that pressure, allowing patients to seek timely medical advice from their GP for both routine and urgent problems. Under the telephone consultation system, the GP determines the most appropriate approach to safely addressing the patient’s needs using their clinical expertise.

Where a face to face appointment is appropriate, that will be arranged. Alternatively, the GP may decide, based on their clinical assessment, that a telephone consultation is appropriate or that the patient should be signposted or directed to other relevant services.

This approach helps the GP to appropriately manage, treat and support the large number of us who seek clinical support and advice from our primary care practitioners. Practice teams are carrying out approximately 200,000 patient consultations on a weekly basis.

In recognition of the increasing demand for primary care services, my Department has continued to invest in our GP workforce and has increased the number of GP trainees by over 70% from 2015 levels. Work is underway on a review of GP trainee places with a working group established to explore issues relating to the GP workforce to ensure we have the workforce in Primary Care we need going forward. Whilst its work is still ongoing, the working group has recommended an immediate increase of 10 additional GP training places as an interim measure for the 2022/23 academic year. This recommendation has been accepted, subject to the necessary approvals. Any future increases will be informed by completion of the work of the working group.

It is important to note however that the increase in demand for primary care services cannot be met solely by increasing the number of GPs. Rather this is part of a wider programme of work to help improve patient access to services in primary care. Other elements include the wider roll-out of primary care Multi-disciplinary Teams as well as the introduction of Advanced Nurse Practitioners and additional General Practice Nurses, all of which are making a difference to how services are delivered in primary care and contributing to improved patient outcomes.

My Department has also made funding of up to £5.5million available to support General Practice in Northern Ireland over the winter period. This included up to £1.7million to further improve telephony infrastructure and improve accessibility, such as the use of on-line systems for ordering repeat prescriptions, helping to free up telephone lines and staff time.

It is essential that we make use of all the tools at our disposal to ensure that we can make best use of the available resources. It will be important that Primary Care continues to transform to meet growing patient demand. Technology and new ways of working will continue to play an important role alongside existing arrangements, such as face to face appointments, which will still be available to GPs to safely manage patient care.