Written question WQ93419

Health boards are working with their partners, including independent providers of primary care – GPs, community pharmacy, dentistry and optometry, to implement the Primary Care Model for Wales.

Through this model, people are able to access an increasingly wide range of professionals and services in their community to support them to stay well and provide advice and support where urgent care needs arise.

For example, we have increased access to a range of clinical services which provide free advice and treatment which people can access directly from a community pharmacy, without the need to contact a GP.

The role of general practice is still important – on average over half the population of Wales accesses GP services each month. We are investing £12m over three years (from April 2022) to help GP practices build their capacity through additional staff, ensuring patients are able to access the healthcare advice they need, such as managing long term health conditions.

The GP speciality training programme has been significantly expanded over the past few years, supported by the Train Work Live marketing campaign and associated financial incentives scheme. The current recruitment target of 160 new GP trainees each year is consistently being achieved. A total of 199 new GP trainees were recruited in 2023. The funding agreed in the Education and Training Plan for 2024/25 includes £37.603m to support core GP training numbers.

We have rolled out a 24/7 urgent care service, accessible via NHS 111 Wales, which provides professional clinical advice remotely and if necessary, signposts or refers people directly to the right place, first time. As part of this work the NHS 111 Wales service has been made available 24/7, online or via phone, providing people with easier access to urgent care services and advice.

Additionally, there are now 11,000 people accessing urgent primary care centres on average every month, with 85% being managed without needing to access an emergency department.

Other services available in the community include audiology, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, dietetics, mental health support and podiatry. There are also third sector, independent and local authority community services. All of these increase the capacity and range of services accessible as part of the Primary Care Model for Wales.