§ 24. Mr. Hilary BennTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on his policy towards general practitioners' co-operatives. [110878]
§ Mr. DenhamOur policy is that patients should have access to high quality care 24 hours a day. We have increased the out-of-hours development fund to £43.4 million to support the development of out-of-hours services. General Practitioner Co-ops are the single largest provider of such services and they have demonstrated that they can deliver flexible, responsive emergency general medical services and reduce the burden of out-of-hours work for GPs involved.