Change in the NHS “has begun” and “the best is still to come”, the Health Secretary has said.
Wes Streeting said that fixing the service will be “a long road but this Government is putting in the work”.
It comes as ministers pledged £102 million to enable refurbishment or expansion in 1,000 GP surgeries across England.
But leading doctors said the money would “barely pay for a handful of individual new surgeries”.
The first GP refurbishment or expansion projects are expected to begin in the summer and form part of the Government’s wider plans to improve the NHS.
Mr Streeting told Sky News he expects to be “judged on results” and pointed to additional appointments created in hospitals and the reduction in the NHS waiting list.
“I want to reassure people that change has begun. The best is still to come,” he added.
Officials estimate that the new investment for GP surgeries will help to generate up to eight million more GP appointments.
“Over the course of the next year or two, I would hope to see a significant increase in those GP appointments,” Mr Streeting told Sky News, though he accepted that the eight million figure is an “estimate”.
He told GB News that the new funding will “start moving general practice in the right direction”.
“If you are one of those people that will be on the phone at eight o’clock this morning after the bank holiday, screaming down the phone trying to get through with frustration – all of these things we are doing (will) start moving general practice in the right direction.”
And he told LBC Radio: “It’s been welcomed by GPs. I know that there are also people in general practice saying: ‘Oh, yeah, but we need even more than that’ – I totally get that but we’ve had more than a decade of capital under-investment in the NHS. I’m not going to get rid of all of that in a year.”
Commenting on the announcement, Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chairwoman of the British Medical Association’s General Practice Committee for England, said: “All new funding is welcome in the current parlous situation many GPs find themselves in, but the scale of the task facing the Government is far greater than these sums would suggest.
“To put it in context, £102m would barely pay for a handful of individual new surgeries, let alone do much to restore the more than 6,300 current surgeries across England.”
Ruth Rankine, the primary care director at the NHS Confederation, said that doctors and their teams will welcome the cash boost to “deliver high-quality care, closer to home, and fit for the 21st century”.
She added: “If we are serious about shifting care from hospital to community, from sickness to prevention, and from analogue to digital, then sustained investment in primary and community estates, equipment and technology is vital.”
