Diolch, Lywydd. With some trepidation I’m going to try and pour some oil upon these troubled waters, because we support entirely your motion. No-one can dispute how incredibly important general practice is to sustaining and delivering national health services. We also support the amendments by Plaid Cymru, because you actually detail facts, although I do think that you are very naughty, Rhun ap Iorwerth, for trying to paint us with the sins of our fathers, or the sins of the big brother across the other side of the wall, because here, this party is very, very supportive of social care, and we have demonstrated that on many an occasion. I’d also like to say that, in reference to amendment 5, the Welsh Conservatives have absolutely zero tolerance for anybody who assaults, abuses or shows hostility to any member of the national health service, because it is a crime that is not acceptable on any level.

Primary care is vitally important to our national health service. I’m grateful to you for bringing this debate. I do feel that I’m unable to support the Government’s amendment until after the Cabinet Secretary has spoken, because I would like to see what he intends to do to support primary care, because I feel that there’s been a neglect of primary care services. We believe that it should be a leading priority for the Welsh Government, in an effort to improve the NHS. Overwhelmingly, general practices are the first instances in which patients will come into contact with the health service, and consequently are one of the most important aspects of the public’s interaction with the NHS. Despite this, we’ve seen the number of general practices in Wales decline by almost 9 per cent over the last 10 years.

Quality primary care is essential in reducing the burdens on our hospitals and emergency services. The more resources we can give our GPs to quickly diagnose and treat patients, the more space we can free up elsewhere in the health service. I think we’ve seen again and again under the Welsh Labour Government that waiting times for treatment and diagnosis in our NHS have lagged behind. I want to make it clear to the Welsh Government, not for the first time, that what is most needed, and yet most overlooked when seeking to rectify this anomaly, is extra investment in primary care.

In Wales, our GPs are inspiring in their ability to make the best of what they are given. However, they are too often underequipped and subsequently unable to handle the situation themselves, forcing them to refer their patients to a hospital or specialist. This is an extra pressure on the NHS, and we need to be giving GPs the ability to take as much pressure off the secondary care sector as possible.

I’d like to give a couple of examples of where I see this work. This is why we’ve brought forward our amendment about the incredibly important role of the allied healthcare professionals involved in multidisciplinary working in a GP practice. I want to just cite one example, of Argyle Street Surgery in Pembroke Dock, which is one of the largest, if not the largest, general practice surgery in the whole of Wales. Their multidisciplinary working team that they have put together, and have been enacting now for quite some time, has allowed people to be seen by the correct person at the correct time. These are their words, not mine: they say that the benefit it brings to them is that it allows continuity of care by the most appropriate person, and it doesn’t have to be a GP; that there’s been a reduction in admissions, improved patient care and, above all, improved patient satisfaction. They say it allows people to exercise their skills and talents, that it’s led to improved end-of-life care and reduced admissions for patients with cancer and non-cancer. It’s increased, above all, job satisfaction.

Their multidisciplinary team—I’ve been to see it, and it is quite extraordinary. They have pulled together a whole raft of people, and they work as this dedicated team that answers the patient’s need. Pembroke Dock has some incredibly deprived areas with people with complex issues and a lot of comorbidity, yet the happiness factor is slowly increasing there, because people understand that they’re seeing, in their own home, an occupational therapist; they’re being able to access a physiotherapist without having to go to the hospital; or they can see the same palliative care nurse who’s going to look after them throughout their entire end-of-life process, not just at the very end, but from the start of that diagnosis all the way through.

That’s why I think it is so vitally important that we not only recognise the importance of these allied healthcare professionals, but recognise that a good GP practice for the twenty-first century must encompass more than just a doctor, and the doctors will say this as well. I would like to see the Cabinet Secretary explain to us how he’s going to put forward enough funding and enough training into general practice in order to enable GPs to be able to develop along this way. I appreciate that the clusters are really beginning to work well in some areas, but there’s still inconsistency in continuity of practice throughout Wales, and we need to ensure that a place like Argyle Street Surgery can actually become a template for general practice throughout Wales. Thank you.