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Written question asked by Lord McCabe (Labour) on Wednesday, 15 March 2017, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 20 March 2017 (named day). It was answered by David Mowat (Conservative) on Monday, 20 March 2017 on behalf of the Department of Health.

General Practitioners: Closures

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 28 February 2017 to Question 65408, on general practitioners: closures, what assessment he has made of the effect that not collecting centrally data on practice closures has on his Department's fulfilment of its responsibilities and priorities to improve services through the use of digital technology, information and transparency.

Answer

Although data on general practitioner (GP) practices is collected by NHS Business Services Authority and published for use in the National Health Service by NHS Digital, data on practice closures cannot distinguish between practices which have closed and those which have merged or been taken over. In addition, changes to definitions of GP practices for data purposes mean that it is not possible to produce meaningful figures relating to closures over a period of years.

The issues around this data collection do not affect NHS services in any way. NHS England works with the Care Quality Commission and clinical commissioning groups to assess local primary care provision in an area and to ensure that appropriate services are available.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
68170
Session
2016-17
Related items
General Practitioners: Closures
Tuesday, 28 February 2017
Written questions
House of Commons
Grouped for answer
Yes
Subjects
Closures General practitioners Statistics
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk