5. What measures is the Welsh Government taking to improve access to GP services in Wales? OQ56840

I thank the Member for that, Llywydd. GP services across Wales face enormous pressures in dealing with the continuing public health emergency alongside high levels of patient demand for non-COVID conditions. The Welsh Government has made available £18.4 million over the past two years to support the profession in responding to the access challenges it faces.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. As restrictions have eased, our GP practices have faced increased pressures, not only in my constituency, but across Wales and the rest of the UK. Throughout the pandemic, primary care teams have done an incredible job, from being part of the vaccination effort and adapting their services so that patients can be seen remotely. However, it's clear that they are under pressure, and the demand for physical appointments has increased greatly. With the winter months set to only add to this, what short-term measures can the Welsh Government take to ensure that the public are as informed as possible about how the pandemic is impacting primary care, and that people know which service is best to use for their needs? And what long-term measures can we take to ensure that a significant level of the investment in the NHS recovery is focused on securing additional activity in primary care to maximise access to patients to help speed up diagnosis and prevent hospitalisations?

Llywydd, I thank Jayne Bryant for all of those points. She is right, isn't she, to point to the enormous pressure that our primary care colleagues have faced over the pandemic and continue to face today and we're going to be asking these same people now to embark on the flu campaign, which will be more important than ever in Wales this winter, and, as Members will have heard, the primary care community will also be part of delivering the autumn booster vaccination campaign for people in the top priority group. So, we're going to be asking even more of people over the weeks and months ahead, and the public really does have a part to play, as Jayne Bryant said. Remote consultations are here to stay, Llywydd, and a very good thing that is too. We do hear—as the leader of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Professor Martin Marshall, said at the weekend—we do hear a lot from people who feel that they would rather be seen face to face. We hear less of the experience of those people who would much rather be able to have a consultation over the phone or over the video because of the way that that allows them to go about other parts of their daily lives. In that same article, Professor Marshall calculated that over half of consultations by primary care clinicians are now carried out face to face. But we have to persuade the public that there are other parts of the primary care family beyond the GPs themselves—pharmacy, community pharmacy, is particularly important here in Wales—and that we can all help to keep a system that is under significant strain, and when real demands are to be made, we can all help by making sure that we go to the right place. That is why the 'Help Us, Help You' campaign that the Welsh Government has been running recently seeks to persuade people to make sure that they only seek a face-to-face consultation with a GP when that is the right clinical course of action.

And in the longer run, we will continue to pursue the approach we have had in Wales now for a number of years: GPs should see only people who need the level of skill and qualification that a GP possesses. There are many other members of the primary care team—physiotherapists, pharmacists, occupational therapists, paramedics—who are equally capable clinically of providing a service to many people who go to primary care, and that team approach to the delivery of services is one we will continue to promote to secure the long-term health of primary care services in Wales.

Jane Dodds.

Thank you very much, Lywydd; it's nice to see everyone back. First Minister, recently, the Newtown patients' forum has raised concerns about the huge pressures on GP services. Whilst coronavirus has exacerbated the problems in Newtown and beyond, a number of practices in the region have seen huge pressures for years.

I'd like to pay tribute to Russell George, the Aelod of the Senedd for Montgomeryshire, for the work that he has done in pushing forward the north Powys well-being programme, which would help to address some of these problems. May I ask the First Minister, please, for a timetable for when we can see this programme, which would make such a difference to north Powys? Diolch yn fawr iawn.

May I thank Jane Dodds for the question? Of course, I acknowledge, as I said in the last response, the pressure that people who work in the field have been under in Powys, and I acknowledge what Russell George has done. I've answered a number of questions on the floor of the Senedd about the developments in Newtown.

Llywydd, I was pleased to see the press release put out by the leaders of the north Powys programme on 17 August, a joint press release between the chief executive of the health board and the cabinet member for adult social care in Powys council. It reported on the work that they were doing to take forward the very important plans for development of a primary care campus in the centre of Newtown. It reported on engagement work that had been carried out with Powys residents and goes on to say that that will now feed into the next stage, the strategic outline case for the whole programme, which they hope to complete in the coming months. That's what the press release says. That strategic outline case then gets presented to the Welsh Government, and I repeat what I've said previously on the floor of the Senedd to Mr George, that the Welsh Government looks to support the scheme, and looks forward to having the latest iteration of those plans coming forward as a result of the work that has been carried out to date.

I think I'd better call you, Mr George, after all of that. Russell George.

Thank you, Llywydd. I'm grateful for Jane Dodds and the First Minister raising these points, and for the First Minister's answer. I think there's a great deal of cross-party support for that north Powys hub, and I believe it'll continue in the same vein, so that's very much appreciated.

I was listening very carefully to your response, First Minister, to Jayne Bryant. I can agree with every word you said in response to Jayne, so I ask my question in that context. There is a great pressure, and a number of people who do want to see their GP face to face, and there is of course the considerable issue of misdiagnosis if a GP doesn't see somebody face to face and has a telephone or online consultation. I ask the question, though, in the vein and the spirit of your response to Jayne Bryant and agreeing with what you said, but I wonder, now we are ahead of the winter pressures and of pressures on the ambulance service, whether this is something you can revisit with GPs in terms of more face-to-face consultations being available, in the context of what you've said.

Llywydd, I understand the points that are being made. The proportion of contacts with GPs and the rest of the clinical team that have been carrying out face to face is growing, but nobody, I think, should encourage the belief that a telephone consultation, a video consultation, is somehow a second-class or second-best form of contact with a GP. For many, many people, that will be their preferred route. It will be more effective; it will release GPs' time for other work. I've had reason myself over the summer to speak to a member of the primary care team, and I was able to do it because I didn't have to take myself all the way to the surgery in order to be able to do so, and I got all the advice that I needed very straightforwardly and easily over the telephone. We have to rely on the clinical judgment of our very skilled professionals to know when a face-to-face consultation is clinically necessary, and if we are going to ask them to continue doing all the things that we're asking them to do, and the extra things we're going to be asking them to do as well, then I think we have to show some confidence in their ability to use the new technology that they have effectively and to distinguish between those people who can be properly advised in that way and those people for whom a face-to-face consultation is a necessary part of the clinical investigation.