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<p>The Government has committed to ensuring everyone across the country has easier
and more convenient access to general practice services, including appointments in
the evenings and weekends.</p><p> </p><p>The latest National Health Service planning
guidance, issued by NHS England in February 2018, brought forward the deadline for
clinical commissioning groups to provide extended access to general practice services
to 1 October 2018, to ensure additional capacity is in place ahead of winter 2018.
This includes ensuring that access is available during peak times of demand, including
bank holidays and across the Easter, Christmas and New Year periods.</p><p> </p><p>NHS
England and Health Education England (HEE) are working together with the profession
to increase the general practitioner (GP) workforce. This includes measures to boost
recruitment, address the reasons why GPs are leaving the profession, and encourage
GPs to return to practice.</p><p> </p><p>The number of doctors entering GP speciality
training has been increasing year on year, this year HEE recruited the highest number
of GP trainees ever - 3,473 GP trainees against a target of 3,250, a 10% increase
on last year.</p><p> </p><p>Greater skill mix is also key to releasing capacity in
general practice, we have committed to investment in the multidisciplinary workforce
in general practice. As of June 2018, there were</p><p>over 3,300 additional clinical
staff, excluding GPs, working in general practice since 2015; consisting of over 500
more nurses and 2,800 more other direct patient care.</p>
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