General Practitioners: Surrey
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he has made an assessment of the potential merits of standardising the GP appointment application process in Surrey.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
The GP Contract requires all practices to offer patients an assessment of need, or signposting to an appropriate service, on the day they contact the practice, or the next day if they contact the practice in the afternoon. They will not be asked to phone back another day.
As independent businesses, practices have autonomy in the way that they function operationally, including the implementation of digital services and how they manage appointments and related processes. Therefore, each practice will have its own approach to managing appointment bookings in order to best meet the needs of the local population.
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