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 5:03 pm on 21 January 2025.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 5:03, 21 January 2025

I agree with what the Member has said is the ambition and the direction of travel. I think I'm right in saying that I had a conversation with one of the practitioners in that practice over the course of the last few weeks, and he echoed the point that the Member has just made again today about the persistent and pernicious existence of Julian Tudor Hart’s inverse care law, even 50 years on from the point at which he first declared that as a concept, which motivates us, doesn’t it?

I think there are absolutely challenges. The question is how best to make sure that we are able to make sure that those practices serving patients in disadvantaged communities, which we know are likely to have a wider range of more complex needs and to need to deliver the services in different ways, with more outreach work in particular, with a community work element—those imaginative solutions—that we can do that in a way that is sustainable into the future.

There have been discussions in the Chamber and elsewhere about the formula for allocating that funding. That appears to be a complex area, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't seek other ways of making sure, in particular at a cluster level, where you can have the resilience of a number of practices serving that larger footprint—. I think that is part of the answer to the challenge that the Member has set out today.

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