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<p>We have made £520 million available to improve access and expand general practice
capacity during the pandemic. This is in addition to £1.5 billion announced in 2020
to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024. In April
2022 45.2% of appointments took place on the same day as the booking was made, with
72.8% taking place within seven days. We have also put in place a short-term solution
to assist practices to provide additional capacity to respond to telephone calls from
patients, while a long-term approach is developed.</p><p>We are working with NHS England
and NHS Improvement, Health Education England and the profession to increase recruitment,
address the reasons why doctors leave the profession and encourage them to return
to practice. In March 2022, there were 1,462 more full-time equivalent doctors in
general practice compared to March 2019.</p><p><strong> </strong></p>
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