The Tories have abandoned their election pledge to recruit 6,000 more GPs in England, a health minister admitted.
Top Tory Neil O'Brien said the promise from the 2019 Tory manifesto was unlikely to be hit amid mounting struggles to recruit and retain family doctors.
Labour said it was another "broken promise from the party that constantly over-promises and under-delivers".
Boosting the NHS was a key plank of Boris Johnson's election-winning blueprint, which also included commitments to expand the nursing workforce by 50,000 and offer 50 million more GP appointments a year.
But former Health Secretary Sajid Javid cast doubt on the GPs' pledge in 2021 when he admitted it was unlikely to be met.
Rishi Sunak further fuelled speculation by failing to include the commitment in his appointment letter to Steve Barclay when he was named Health Secretary last year.
Today, Mr O'Brien made it clear that the Government wasn't expecting to meet the target.
Asked if the GP pledge still stands, he told the Today programme: "We will continue to do everything we can to grow the number of GPs.
"The former Health Secretary Sajid Javid said that he thought that that target was unlikely to be hit.
"We will take action to both retain the really great GPs we have already got by making their pensions more generous. We will also train more new GPs so more are flowing into general practice."
Asked to be clear that the pledge would not be met, he said: "Absolutely. Sajid Javid said several years ago that we were not going to be able to hit that 6,000 target because of everything going on."
The Prime Minister also notably refused to repeat the vow on a visit to Southampton to promote new plans to ease pressure on surgeries by letting patients obtain prescription medicines and oral contraception directly from pharmacies.
And he insisted that "not everyone needs to see a GP" as he faced questions over the promise.
Mr Sunak said: "Right now, there are almost 2,000 more doctors working in general practice than there were in 2019.
"But also - and I can speak with some knowledge of this - it is the case that not everyone needs to see a GP.
"My dad was a GP, my mum was a pharmacist.
"So, the other thing that we're doing is investing in lots of other roles. There are actually 25,000 more staff working in primary care more generally.
"If you talk to patients in this practice that we're at, they get fantastic care from their nurse to treat them for asthma, another nurse for diabetes or a physiotherapist, all different roles that we're investing more in so that people can get the care they need and allows GPs to focus on what only they can do.
"We are massively expanding the number of people working in primary care."
Pressed again, the PM said: "What we are going to be doing is bringing forward shortly a plan, the long-term plan for the NHS workforce.
"Right now, we have record numbers of people in GP training. That's a good thing. But we want to significantly expand the number of specialist GPs working so the long-term NHS workforce plan will set out our ambitions and how we're going to deliver that, but they're already record numbers, we want to go further.
"As well as GPs, it's really important that we also consider all the other roles in primary care."
Shadow Health Minister Andrew Gwynne said: “The Conservatives have let the cat out of the bag - they haven’t got a recovery plan, they have a plan for managed decline of the NHS.
“This is yet another broken promise from the party that constantly over-promises and under-delivers. Patients will be waiting longer to see a GP as a result. So much for Rishi Sunak’s ‘relaunch.’”
New analysis by the Liberal Democrats found the the number of GPs in Mr Sunak's hometown of Southampton has fallen by 4% since the 2019 election.
In Hampshire, Southampton and the Isle of Wight, the number of family doctors dropped by 36 between 2019 and March 2023.
Across England, the number of GPs has fallen by almost 1,000 or 2.9% since 2019.
Lib Dem health spokeswoman Daisy Cooper said: “This is yet another empty promise from a Conservative government that is running out of road and running out of ideas.
“People in Southampton and across the country are suffering the consequences of years of broken promises from the Conservatives.
"Despite GPs seeing more and more patients, too many patients still find it almost impossible to get an appointment when they need one because this government has neglected local health services for years.
Mr Sunak has already already abandoned his leadership pledge to impose a £10-fine for patients who miss NHS appointments - and No10 said last year that all is vows to Tory members were up for review.
