4. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Access to Primary Care Services

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:49 pm on 28 March 2023.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 3:49, 28 March 2023

Diolch yn fawr. You'll know that, in relation to access to GPs, we've done a huge amount of work on that over the past few years. In fact, we had some access standards set out, and I'm pleased to say that 89 per cent of GP surgeries are already achieving the access standards that we set out. Those access standards include a commitment to make sure that what is offered by GP surgeries, for example, is a blended model of different ways of accessing. It may be that there'll be an opportunity for an urgent on-the-day booking, there'll be prebookable appointments, there'll be telephone consultations available, there'll be digital contact available. The whole point is that there's a broader way of accessing GP surgeries, and that face-to-face contact would depend on the clinical judgment of the GP. Up until now, that has been effectively a voluntary approach, but in three days' time that will become a requirement. I'm hoping that, for those laggards who have not got rid of the 8 a.m. bottleneck, for example, we will see some shift in those from 1 April.

When it comes to the NHS Wales app, it's been very carefully tested. It's live, but for a small group of people, already. What we didn't want to do is to see what they did in England, which was to launch the app and watch all of the GP surgeries just switch it off, so actually your ability to use it was quite restrained. We're taking it very, very carefully, but I'll have some news on that imminently.

In terms of improvements and transparency and making sure that the voice of the patient is heard, of course there is access now to the community health councils. That is the voice of the patient, and of course, that, from 1 April, will be turning to the new patient voice facility, Llais, so hopefully people will know that they can access that as a way of letting the NHS know if they're dissatisfied with the service.

When it comes to the abolition of pension allowance for doctors, we actually lobbied for this. I was very clear that we had to do something to try and stem the flow of doctors retiring early, so we're pleased to see that. Whether it needed to be extended to everybody in that particular tax bracket, I'm not sure about that, but certainly we've welcomed it in relation to the NHS.

We've got more GPs than ever. When it comes to e-prescribing, you will see some changes on that this summer, at the GP level. And of course there are different ways, as you say, of accessing primary care services. One of the things you will have seen, and you will have seen it because you'll have been living in a cave if you haven't seen it, is the 'Help Us to Help You' campaign, which tries to direct people to the right facility for them. And obviously there's also the 111 service that directs people. Very few of the people who phone 111 are directed to accident and emergency.

I did have a meeting with the British Dental Association. There are clearly a number of issues that we still need to iron out with them. We do need to make sure that we perhaps give a much clearer picture of what's coming their way and that we discuss that with them earlier in the process. I have asked the head of dentistry for Welsh Government to continue with that discussion and I've asked for a follow-up, just to see how far we get on that in the next week.