4. Will the First Minister make a statement on the development of a new health centre in Holyhead? OQ57829

I thank Rhun ap Iorwerth. Llywydd, we are committed to investing in a new generation of integrated health and social care centres across Wales. In these centres, front-line health and social care centres will be co-located with other services. The project board leading discussion on such a development in Holyhead continues to meet monthly.

Nearly three years have passed since Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board had to take direct control of the Longford Road and Cambria surgeries in Holyhead, and, yes, it's been a period of unprecedented challenge for primary care everywhere. But, for nearly three years now, patients at those two surgeries have had to receive a standard of care way below what they should be able to expect. Yes, there's a new urgent primary care centre on the way to Ysbyty Penrhos Stanley, but that's different. And yes, the staff at Longford Road and Cambria are doing everything that they can in very, very difficult circumstances. But we need a new multidisciplinary primary healthcare centre that can attract staff and provide the necessary services, and we need it urgently. I've been pursuing this for, yes, nearly three years now, but, at a recent meeting with the health board, it became clear to me that things are moving very, very slowly indeed. Can the First Minister tell me when he would expect the people of Holyhead who are patients at those surgeries, to receive the standard of service that they should be able to expect? And what can he do to bring about that investment urgently—an investment that I've been calling for for such a long time?

Well, I thank the Member for that. I think the last time he asked me a question of this sort, I was able to tell him that there were plans to recruit new GPs to support the service in Holyhead, and I'm at least pleased to be able to tell him today that the three GPs who were expected to be recruited at that time have now all been recruited, the last one joining in January. I'm also glad to say that project Flex, which is a project being run in that part of Wales that offers flexible contracts to retired GPs—and we know that many GPs have retired early from the profession because of the pension arrangements forced on them by the UK Government—to find flexible ways in which they can come back into the workforce and to provide services, and there are already GPs in that category working in Holyhead.

The long-term answer is the one that Rhun ap Iorwerth has identified: the new centre. The note that I have had tells me that the board—the project board, not the local health board, the project board; it's not just the health board, it is the local authority, it is the town council, it is other local interests—they will go out to a public engagement in May. They've got to wait until then because of the local authority elections, but they've got to a point where they're able to go out and have that public engagement. There are a number of sites that they have in mind; they'll all be familiar to the local Member. They will then have to put that case to the regional partnership board and the regional partnership board will put its proposals to the Welsh Government. I don't think that there is a great deal that the Welsh Government can do to accelerate that process, because it has to be fair to everybody who may wish to make a bid for one of the new centres. But the process is now clear and I look forward to it resulting in a specific proposal that comes to Welsh Government that we will be able to consider with, I've no doubt, other compelling cases that will be made by other parts of north Wales.