Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to encourage Integrated Care Boards to invest in Primary Care.

Primary care services are the front door to the health service for most people, and the key to earlier diagnosis. Improving primary care access is essential in supporting a move to a neighbourhood health service, with more care delivered in local communities.

National Health Service planning guidance is now published for 2025/26 and sets out the funding available to integrated care boards (ICBs). It also sets out system priorities for 2025/26, including improving patients’ access to general practice, improving patient experience, and improving access to urgent dental care, by providing 700,000 additional urgent dental appointments.

We have announced a proposed £889 million increase in funding for general practice in 2025/26, the largest uplift in years, reversing the recent trend and allocating a larger share of NHS resources to general practice. This will support our commitments and help drive reform in key areas. Additionally, the 2024 Spending Review introduced the Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund, which allocates £102 million in new capital funding to improve primary care facilities. ICBs also receive discretionary funding, allowing them to invest in initiatives such as local enhanced services, retention schemes, and transformation support, with the flexibility to direct both funding and capital allocations to meet local needs and encourage the shift from hospital care to the community.

The NHS in England invests £3 billion into dentistry every year. NHS England is responsible for issuing guidance to ICBs on dental budgets, including ringfences. Planning guidance also confirms that improving access to urgent dental appointments is a key national priority.

The commissioning of NHS pharmaceutical services in Community Pharmacy in England remains a mixed model of nationally commissioned services and locally commissioned services, in which the ICBs play a role. The Government recognises the importance of retaining both approaches as we take steps to stabilise the sector and build a service fit for the future, including making prescribing part of the services delivered by community pharmacists. The Government recently resumed its consultation with Community Pharmacy England regarding funding arrangements for 2024/25 and 2025/26.