Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:43 pm on 21 January 2025.
I thank the Member for those questions. In terms of the impact of payments, that work is ongoing. Of course, I can't talk about specific financial support for GPs at the moment. We're in the middle of further negotiations with them on the contract, as I mentioned in my statement. But these things are regularly discussed by us and the GPs, as the Member would expect.
He made an important point on online services and enabling people to have equal access to appointments through the appropriate standards. I think that when we do see the launch of the NHS app, this will strengthen the offer, if you like, and the opportunity for people to operate online in terms of getting appointments. We have provided a budget in order to expand equal access, and that's around £12 million, if memory serves me correctly, and that is being delivered by health boards, working along with GPs.
As I mentioned in my statement, we have prioritised investment in community nursing, and that has been successful in terms of an increase in the numbers available. Of course, we need more of that, but the objective we have is to ensure that nursing provision can, on the weekend, provide some 80 per cent of what's available during the week. We haven't reached that target as of yet, but that is the work currently ongoing, and numbers have been increased.
The Member made the same point, I think, that he raised last week on Further, Faster, and I think the Member's challenge is that we need to put the RPBs on a statutory basis so that they can collaborate, but that's not the function of the RPBs; they are not boards for delivery, they are boards to co-ordinate the work of two bodies that are already on a statutory basis and already have primary responsibilities in statute and elsewhere. So, I myself don't believe that creating another statutory structure, once again, in terms of our overly complex nation, is the solution to this; I think better collaboration and co-operation is the solution.
The Member posed another challenge to me, where there is an example of activity in terms of a ministerial directive and whether that's worked. Well, the First Minister, when she was health Minister, gave a directive to Hywel Dda and Swansea bay health boards to create a joint board to work together on providing services jointly, and that has worked; we have seen that bear fruit already in terms of orthopaedics, but in other areas too. So, our system is structured in order to devolve executive powers, as the Member knows, to the health boards, and that, generally speaking, is the right way of doing things. It's a specific challenge, I think, to generate regional co-operation; we haven't done as much of that as we should have done, so that is the message I've given to the sector more generally: if we don't see more of that happening, then I will be willing to continue to use those ministerial directive powers to ensure that that happens on the ground. I myself don't believe that creating a statutory body will be more effective than the ability to direct bodies that already exist to take particular actions.