Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Our Welsh Labour manifesto made a commitment to take action to attract more GPs to Wales and to encourage more doctors to train here. We also agreed with Plaid Cymru, as part of the compact to move Wales forward, to put in place plans to train additional GPs and other primary care professionals. Our vision for the Welsh NHS is an integrated health service with strengthened and modernised primary care at its heart. More routine healthcare will need to be provided in local communities, closer to people’s homes, preventing the need to travel or be admitted to hospital.

The Welsh Government published our primary care plan in 2014. This sets out a clear approach to stabilising and securing future primary care services, based on the principles of prudent healthcare and a remodelled and diversified workforce. A primary care workforce plan was published in November 2015, and it includes actions to develop, diversify and invest in the primary care workforce, including, of course, GPs.

We know that traditional models of general practice are under pressure as fewer doctors across the UK are choosing general practice as a career, and many of those who do are choosing to work as salaried or locum GPs. There are, of course, other challenges too: retaining older and more experienced GPs as part of a trend toward early retirement, increases in sessional-based work and more GPs choosing to work part time, and there is often a poor perception of general practice as a career choice. These are just some of the career challenges, all set against a backdrop of a difficult recruitment market right across the UK and internationally.

Since the First Minister’s statement in May, we’ve developed plans for a major national and international recruitment campaign to market Wales and NHS Wales as an attractive place for doctors, including GPs, and their families, to train, work and live. Organisations across Wales, including health boards and trusts, will come together under the banner of NHS Wales to harness the best use of local activity, such as the excellent Rhondda Docs website—and I will say, if you haven’t had a look at it, it’s well worth having a look at what doctors are doing for themselves to market the place that they live and work in and are very proud to do so. All of this will take place using the Wales brand. The campaign will take a four-pronged approach. It will target medical students yet to choose a speciality to improve GP training place fill rates, trainees coming to the end of their training to encourage them to live and work in Wales, recently qualified GPs or those in the early stages of their career, and GPs nearing retirement or very recently retired to promote other available options to encourage them to stay or return to practice.

I can confirm to the Chamber today that we will be launching the campaign on 20 October, leading straight into the British Medical Journal careers fair in London on 21 and 22 October. This is the first component of a longer term, sustained campaign to attract more doctors to Wales.

In addition to the marketing elements of the campaign, we’ve been working with our partners, including the GPC and the Royal College of General Practitioners in Wales, to establish a clearer deal for GPs in the form of a ‘Wales offer’. This will communicate the existing benefits of being a GP in Wales and the actions being taken to address the concerns of those who are delivering services everyday so that Wales becomes a country of choice.

To support GPs, and their families, who want to work in Wales, we are developing a single point of contact as part of the once-for-Wales remit of the NHS Wales shared services partnership. This will build on the single GP employer function currently provided by shared services and will offer an easily accessible source of information on medical careers and general practice. It will encourage and support those who respond to the campaign or express an interest in returning to work in the health profession. A network of recruitment champions will also be promoted. The champions will act as a contact for doctors from outside Wales who are considering relocating to Wales to discuss what working in Wales is really like.

We’re also working with the Wales Deanery to develop a potential incentive scheme for a limited number of GP posts as part of a wider package to support areas of Wales facing particular challenges to fill existing GP trainee posts.

Alongside the campaign we will, of course, continue to invest in primary care: £42.6 million has been made available for 2016-17 to health boards to support the delivery of their plans, and £10 million of this has been allocated for the 64 primary care clusters to invest in their local priorities and to enable innovation at a local level.

We will continue to work with our partners to address workload—40 per cent of the points associated with the GP contract quality and outcomes framework requirements have been removed since 2015-16—and to develop solutions to issues such as professional indemnity.

What I’ve described so far represents the initial phase of the campaign, focusing on doctors. The next phase will aim to address the challenges faced by other primary care professions, such as nurses, therapists, pharmacists, dentists, optometrists and paramedics, as the need for greater diversification of the primary care workforce continues. We’re working with our partners and primary care clusters to understand the range of skills needed in primary care to meet the current and predicted future demand. This analysis of workforce need will enable us to deliver targeted marketing campaigns and to develop comprehensive workforce training and development programmes at both health board and national level.

To oversee the development, implementation and delivery of the activity that I have set out, a ministerial taskforce has been established. This brings together professional organisations, employers and Government to hold all those responsible for delivery to account. I chaired the first meeting of the taskforce in August, and we are due to meet again early next month.

Our plans for primary care are clear. Delivery depends on getting the best from the full range of the primary care workforce, and we will continue to invest significantly in this over this Assembly term.