5. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care: Access to Primary and Community Care Services

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:48 pm on 21 January 2025.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 4:48, 21 January 2025

I thank the Member for that. I think she makes an important point, and others have touched on this as well, about the challenge of demand in the system and providing access to GP services specifically. I think it's quite a complex landscape, because it is a changing landscape. So, clearly, the level of demand is increasing and the question is whether the profile of that demand is changing as well. So, people may want to see a GP immediately, but there are two questions in that, aren't there: whether the GP is the right person to provide the care and whether there is, if I can put it in these terms, a well-founded need for urgency, or whether that is a preference of the patient. And it will vary, clearly, from case to case. It isn't clear to me that there's an obvious pattern in there; GPs will report different things.

I think there's also a sense that, when so many other aspects of our modern life are available with a real sense of immediacy, then there is a level of impatience when people can't see a GP immediately, and that may well be fair enough, but there'll be other circumstances in which, maybe, that urgency isn't there. So, I think it's quite a complex picture. What is absolutely the case is that, where we know that there are other alternatives, as I've been talking about in the statement, we need to make sure that people understand where they can access those. I think people's understanding of how you access NHS services is generally, from a patient point of view, either at your GP practice or A&E, and there's a challenge for us there, because both those parts of the NHS are under very significant pressure. So, I think there is a case for looking at what we can do to help people navigate the NHS better. NHS 111 has been very effective at doing that, but as we bring about such a level of reform in the system, there's a constant challenge to us, I think, about how we can make sure that people are able to navigate the service in that way.