Health secretary says winter fuel payment cut was a topic on the doorsteps during local election campaigningReform UK has been accused of hypocrisy after it emerged the party is advertising several jobs offering home working despite promising a clampdown on the policy, Jamie Grierson reports.Wes Streeting, the health secretary, was ostensibly doing a media round this morning to promote a government announcement about £102m being invested in England to modernise 1,000 GP surgeries. This will allow GPs to deliver 8m more appointments a year, he claimed.Right now, many GP surgeries could be seeing more patients, but don’t have enough room or the right facilities to accommodate them. From creating new consultation and treatment rooms to making better use of existing space, these quick fixes will help patients across the country be seen faster …This is the first national capital fund for primary care estates since 2020 and part of a comprehensive package of GP support, alongside recruiting 1,500 additional GPs and reducing bureaucracy.Playbook notices the policy was first announced at the budget and that the funding was initially supposed to cover refurbs for 200 GP surgeries. A government official said the decision was made to instead spread the money around to more GP surgeries after consulting with the sector. “Instead of fewer large-scale renovations, we identified opportunities for targeted ‘quick fix’ improvements that can be implemented rapidly across more locations,” they said. Continue reading...