Written question WQ93719

The key principle of the Primary Care Model for Wales is to ensure people can access appropriate and timely care as close to home as possible.

To support access to primary care more generally, pharmacies have helped to create additional capacity for GP services by delivering more than 600,000 consultations across Wales. These include services likes the common ailments scheme and emergency prescription service, which are available in Pembrokeshire.

Urgent primary care centres have been set up across Wales, including in Pembrokeshire, and the 111 service provides support for more than 70,000 people throughout Wales each month.

Hywel Dda University Health Board provides information about how people can access the available services via the Help Us, Help You campaign Help us to help you – accessing our services - Hywel Dda University Health Board (nhs.wales)

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.