Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 10 May 2022.
Llywydd, there's little that I disagree with in what the leader of the opposition has said, and I certainly agree with him about the importance of pharmacists and the part that they play. They're playing a particularly significant part at the moment when there are, for a variety of reasons, shortages of a number of very important medicines that pharmacists have to manage. There are different ways in which you can model the need for GPs in the future. We ask the body that we have set up, Health Education and Improvement Wales, to do that on our behalf. They will take into account the views of the profession, of course, but they will have other sources of evidence available to them. This Labour Government has never failed to fund an expansion in the numbers of GP training places when that is the advice that we have had from those who are in the position to carry out that analysis. If they come to us and they seek a further increase—remember, 160 is a significant increase on the figures that we used to have—if they come to us and make that case, then, of course, that will be very properly considered by us.