Written question WQ83570
- Asked by
- Russell GeorgeConservative
- To be answered by
- Minister for Health and Social Services
- Tabled
- Due
- Answered
- Time to answer
- 8 days
Question
Will the Minister provide an update on NHS Wales's work on the collection and publication of data relating to access to GP appointments?
Answer
Answered by Minister for Health and Social Services
Welsh Government officials established this year a cross-organisation working group (comprising colleagues from Welsh Government, Health Boards, Digital Health and Care Wales and General Practitioners Committee Wales) to explore the way GP activity is measured.
Working in collaboration with GPs and DHCW colleagues, access to GP systems data has been granted to officials to analyse the information that is currently collected. The group has found that GP systems are set up to enable practices to organise their day-to-day operations efficiently, and not to create a whole-system view of GP activity.
All parties agree that a whole-system view is both useful and necessary to plan services into the future, and the intention is to develop a universal process that achieves this by standardising the way GPs input their appointment data into their systems.
Such a process will enable accurate and up-to-date information on the number and mode of appointments carried out by GPs to be provided in an uncontentious and transparent way.