Longer GP opening hours would require £2bn shift of funding into primary care, says GP leader

The government’s plans for patients in England to have access to a general practitioner any day of the week and in the evenings would require an investment of £35 (€41; $56) per head of population, a senior GP has claimed.

Ministers last week set out plans to trial a new scheme that would make it possible for patients to see their GP from 8 am to 8 pm, seven days a week, funded by £50m to be shared among nine pilot sites covering half a million people.1

James Kingsland, a Department of Health …