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 4:58 pm on 21 January 2025.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 4:58, 21 January 2025

I thank Mike Hedges for those questions. The way he put his question, I think, shows the complexity of it. He made the point about separating secondary and primary care, but then the example he gave was one that reminds us of the interdependency, if you like, between people's access to primary care and what that can mean for access for secondary care. So, the relationship, obviously, is very interdependent in that way.

I do agree with him that what we should see, as far as we possibly can, is the provision of more and more services in the primary care setting, whether that's diagnostics, but in the way that he said also, minor surgical interventions and a range of others. Some of them I touched on today, but he makes a point, I think, about a larger volume of activity in primary care. I have no doubt whatsoever that that is the right way forward, and I hope that we will be able to see progressively an increase in that. Whether it's at a practice level, or at a cluster level, I absolutely think that that is part of the solution to being able to provide more funding to primary care settings and the sustainability of the model into the future.