3. Will the Minister make a statement on access to GP services in North Wales? OAQ53773

Yes. We want to see sustainable and accessible GP services across Wales. GP practices are using components of the primary care model to improve the way they provide services to patients, including, of course, within north Wales.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. GP services are suffering. My constituents report waiting weeks for a routine appointment and just not being able to get through on the phone, sometimes needing to try up to 50 times and then giving up. Many say that they are losing confidence and faith in the health service. We've already heard that recent changes to the funding available for the indemnity scheme seem to be a step too far for many of those GPs. Minister, your very first ministerial responsibility is oversight of NHS delivery and performance. Are you doing your job properly?

'Yes' is the simple answer to the final question, but actually we know that, in response to the question asked by Alun Davies, there is a need to recognise that access is a key challenge in every community across Wales. And actually, as politicians, when you go out and talk to people, you know if there's a problem because it's localised—because some houses you'll talk to won't have a problem at all and won't raise it, and a few streets over, you'll have lots of people saying they have real challenges about accessing their local general practice.

That's why I've made access such a priority in conversations with local health services not just in the last year, but in the year moving ahead as well. It's part of our conversations with general practice in terms of how we introduce those new models, because, actually, most general practices in the country don't have a problem with having access to the right person at the right time, but a significant minority do, and almost all of us will know people, if not ourselves, who have had some of those challenges. 

When it comes to the general practice contract for general medical services, we have made real progress. We have made a real step forward on indemnity arrangements. It will de-risk the future of local healthcare for general practitioners. On the broader contract, I am optimistic that we will secure agreement, as I have always intended to. Recently, and over the last month, there have been further negotiations between the BMA general practice committee, the Welsh Government and the NHS, and I'm optimistic that in the coming weeks we'll reach an agreement to take this matter forward.

Of course, because of the shortage of GPs in north Wales, more and more surgeries have been coming under direct management by the Betsi Cadwaladr health board. Can I ask whether Welsh Government has carried out any analysis or any sort of study comparing services provided by those surgeries as compared to the more traditional practice model?

Yes, there's quite a lot of information available about the relative cost of independent contractors or managed practices, but it's also about our ability to attract and retain people to work in those services, not just GPs, but other clinical staff as well. So, we do have a range of those practices that have come in to be managed by Betsi Cadwaladr, and they've all managed to maintain a service for the local public, but my ambition is to have a more stable model for local healthcare to be delivered. That's why we talk about clusters coming together; we think we're going to see more co-working between those different practices. Those may be formal mergers; they may be federations. But, actually, to have that stability, whether doctors choose to work as an employed doctor employed by other doctors, or whether they wish to become partners—and we ought to incentivise people to become partners in general practice—and then to make sure they have a proper multidisciplinary team, that is more and more what we are going to deliver in local healthcare. If the Member wants further detail, I'd be happy to discuss outside the Chamber in correspondence.