Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:08 pm on 31 January 2018.
Cabinet Secretary, the BMA recently conducted a survey of GPs offering out-of-hours services. Nearly half of all respondents do not provide any out-of-hours services. Those GPs were asked to identify the main barriers to out-of-hours provision: 64.3 per cent cited exhaustion from daily pressures as the main barrier. In my region, over the last couple of years, four practices have closed and 13 are on the local health board's at-risk list, and a further 12 have indicated that their future is uncertain. If more practices close, we won't be able to provide adequate in-hours services, let alone out-of-hours. Cabinet Secretary, what plans do you have to address workload pressures to enable a greater number of GPs to provide out-of-hours care?