Cabinet Secretary, I do not doubt your commitment to finding an answer. The trouble is that you’ve been looking for that answer for over two years, if not longer. You offer no timeline, no end date and no commitment to a state-backed solution and no answers. The issue at hand is that GPs have to pay for two elements of insurance. There’s a relatively stable set rate for professional advice and support and a variable, separate rate for clinical medical negligence cover. Changes to the clinical negligence cover model have made this insurance extremely expensive and precludes many contracted GPs from upping their hours in times of need such as winter pressures or stepping in to help another practice where a GP may have resigned or died or retired. The Welsh risk pool offsets cover for managed practices, locums and out-of-hours GP services. Cabinet Secretary, whilst this is a welcome move, by only doing half the job by tackling half the workforce, you risk destabilising general practice. I accept it is an unintended consequence, but I think this highlights why you need to act swiftly, because it makes becoming a GP in a practice far less attractive.

The recent—and welcomed—announcement by the Secretary of State for Health in England that English GPs will be covered by a state-backed solution could further attract GPs away from Wales. Given the disparity in earnings between GPs in Wales and GPs in England, this could be the final straw. So, we have a situation in Wales where you’ve been looking for a solution; you’ve been looking for an awfully long time. Cabinet Secretary, can you please tell us when you’re going to come forward with some kind of proposal, so that we can try to ensure that we do not lose those hard-won GPs that we have? We need to ensure that they will stay with us. We need to get rid of the disparity between being a GP in a practice and a GP that works for a health board, is a locum or does out-of-hours services, and we need to make sure they do not drift across that border. I think that this could undo an awful lot of the good work I know you’ve tried to do in recruiting and retaining GPs to this country.