North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has this week asked the Education Secretary to respond to calls by the North Wales Local Medical Committee to incorporate connections with Liverpool and Manchester Medical Schools and restore the supply of new and young doctors from there, some of whom will be from North Wales originally.
Mr Isherwood raised the matter with Kirsty Williams AM in the Assembly Chamber yesterday.
He said:
“It's 18 months since I asked the First Minister here to ensure that the business case for a new Medical School in Bangor included dialogue with Liverpool Medical School, after the North Wales Local Medical Committee had expressed concern that the previous supply from there, where many of their generation of GPs had come from, had largely been severed.
“In addition, therefore, to the medical education to be provided in Bangor through the collaborative approach with Cardiff and Swansea, which I welcome, how do you respond to the continuing calls by the North Wales Local Medical Committee to incorporate connections with Liverpool and Manchester Medical Schools and also, therefore, restore the supply of new young doctors into North Wales from there, when many trainee doctors may still choose to study there alongside their studies within Wales?”
The Cabinet Secretary replied: “We have seen a record number of Welsh students gaining a place at medical school, whether that be medical schools here in Wales or, indeed, in the rest of the UK, which shows the strength and the ability of our A-level students to secure those places. I have not been personally involved in those discussions with providers across the border. My priority is to support the intense work that is going on between Cardiff and Bangor Universities, which is at an advanced stage and shows two institutions working really closely together. This new expansion will provide pathways for doctors being trained completely in North Wales, enabling medical students to study in North Wales for the entirety of their degree and to plan for their postgraduate training, and I think that's very much to be welcomed.”
Mr Isherwood added: “So we will continue to lose those from North Wales who choose to study just across the border and forfeit those from across the border who could be meeting unmet need for GPs in North Wales”.