2. What is the Welsh Government doing to attract health professionals to work in mid Wales? OQ59322

Llywydd, we work with partners to retain existing workers, recruit locally and bring new clinicians to the area. While challenges remain, and are real, mid Wales continues to be an attractive place to work, live and train. The workforce of the Powys local health board has increased by over 700 full-time posts over the last decade.

Thank you, First Minister, for your answer. There's a real issue in my constituency in accessing a GP, often having to wait for a considerable time to see a GP, and there are, obviously, the consequences of that. What I would ask, First Minister, is: what do you see as the barriers for GPs and, indeed, dentists, coming to work in mid Wales and how can those barriers be removed? In particular, I think of the performers list. There is a performers list that GPs, dentists have to apply for in order to work in Wales, and correctly so, in my view, for patient safety reasons. But we are aware, of course, of the long-standing issue where, if you graduate or live in England, you can apply for the English performers list, but there's a disincentive then to come and work in Wales. So, can I ask what you are aware of, in terms of a UK-wide performers list or a joint Wales-English performers list, or, indeed, automatically enrolling people on a Welsh performers list, if the Welsh Government is satisfied with the criteria in England and the process in England? But, ultimately, what can be done to remove any barriers to allow dentists and GPs in particular to come and live and work in mid Wales? 

Well, I thank Russell George for those further questions. I was able to discuss recruitment in Powys with the chief executive of the Powys university health board yesterday. She said to me that Powys has only one managed practice and that there is a realistic hope that new contractors will be found, happy to come and take over that practice as well, and, while recruitment is challenging, as it is everywhere, it is holding up in the Powys health board area with some recent recruitment in parts of their responsibility.

I talked with Carol Shillabeer about the performers list. I don't agree that there should be a single performers list. You need to know, if a GP is practising in Wales, that they understand the way in which the policy landscape operates in Wales, the different way in which services are deployed on the ground. It's not good enough simply to say, because you are okay to practise on one side of the border, you can just automatically assume that you are fit to practise somewhere where the landscape is very different. What I believe, though, is that the transferability should be made as specific and easy as possible. There should be no artificial barriers to people being able to practise in England and Wales. You do need to be sure and confident that somebody who practises in Wales is fit to do so in the Welsh context, and a great deal of work has gone on between the English NHS and the Welsh NHS to make sure that it is as easy as possible to be able to be recognised on either side of the border. It does work both ways, because there are many people who live in England who get their primary care from staff who are employed here in Wales, and the English system would, equally, wish to make sure that people providing those services are recognised properly as competent to do the work that they are asked to do.