General Practitioners: Contracts
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to Question 118267 answered on 13 March on General Practitioners: Contracts, what data will be collected about advice and guidance by NHS England.
Answered by Karin Smyth
NHS England collects and publishes national data on total Advice and Guidance (A&G) activity through the existing system elective recovery outpatient collection, published and available at the following link:
This includes total A&G requests sent, processed requests, where a specialist has returned the advice and diversions, where the outcome of A&G is that a referral is not required. This data is also available at provider and integrated care board levels.
NHS England also collects data on the above by treatment function, or specialty, and on turnaround times of A&G. These are not published but available to National Health Service providers through the Model Health System. During 2026/27, NHS England will review and expand what measures are published as and when additional data becomes available through the expansion and improvements to the electronic referral system platform.
Between April 2025 and November 2025, there were 2,394,266 pre-referral advice and guidance requests, of which 2,210,443 were processed and 1,095,172 have been diverted, which is 45.7% of total requests. Diverted patients may otherwise have had to wait for an unnecessary appointment and instead are expected to receive more timely care with earlier specialist input.
Verbatim has judged this answer against the question that was actually asked — answered, partly answered, or evaded. Sign in to see the verdict →