Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:37 pm on 20 June 2018.
To return to the figures, with GPs, we know that there is a shortage of GPs in any case, and Government figures published today show an increase in the number of people complaining that they have to wait a long time for treatment, but the number of Welsh speakers has significantly declined too. So, action is needed now.
We have seen that the statistics in terms of training places for GPs are lower in relation to the population than is the case in England and Scotland. Therefore, turning to that other amendment on medical education, we are facing a problem with a shortage of doctors—we know that. So, let’s start to overturn this by investing and setting an ambition in terms of increasing the number of medical students and the number of placements available for medical students.
We have a whole host of examples that demonstrate the value of training in a rural area in order to persuade people to work in rural areas—examples from Norway, from Calgary, from the USA and, indeed, from across the world, if truth be told. There is good work being done in Swansea, in the university there, to expand the number of training places in west Wales. Cardiff may, then, be the most natural partner to work with Bangor University on a new centre for medical education, because that is truly needed. Ireland has seven medical schools and Scotland has five, which suggests that a medical school for every million of the population is something that works. We need another in Wales.