Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 11 January 2022.
Well, I can help with a number of them, Llywydd, otherwise I would be here for the whole afternoon, I think. But the first point to make, as I know Russell George will recognise, is that those other parts of the system are also under significant pressure at the moment. I saw only earlier today the impact on the pharmacy profession, the number of community pharmacists who are ill at the moment with coronavirus or self-isolating and therefore not able to be offering the services that otherwise are such a very helpful addition to the NHS.
So, the Welsh Government's actions cover quite a range of things, including many of the things but not all that the Member mentioned. Certainly, it involves the strengthening of community pharmacies—I was very glad to see that we've reached an agreement recently on a contract with community pharmacy that will mean that there will be an extended range of services available in more parts of Wales, so that more patients can safely and clinically properly be looked after in the community pharmacy field. We have concluded contract negotiations with the Welsh general practitioners committee as well. That will have a particular focus on access to the primary care team, not simply to GPs, but as I always say here, that wider team of people who provide services in primary care and can again very often see people in a way that saves the time of people who have a more rounded set of skills and are therefore able to look after more challenging cases. So, in every part of the system, the aim of the Welsh Government is to reinforce the health service during this time of crisis, but to do it in a way that contributes to the long-term recovery of the NHS when we finally find ourselves moving beyond the current pandemic.