Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:42 pm on 15 October 2019.
Well, I can certainly tell the Member that there were extensive experiments that were carried out after that commitment and detailed discussions with the General Practitioners Committee Wales. What the experiments showed, unlike as we may have anticipated here, was that the use made by patients of extended hours surgeries was not at a level that we believed, in discussion with the GP workforce, justified the extra expense that had been committed to them—that there were better ways. That is the view of the GP community—that there were better ways to make sure that services were available, including through diversification of the workforce, including through all the things that we do to use community pharmacies. And having tried a series of experiments with opening hours later into the evening, at weekends, we now have a pattern agreed with the GP community in Wales. It's not perfect, it doesn't operate as we would want it everywhere, but it is the result of discussions with the profession that we have the pattern we have.