North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has today called for an urgent Welsh Government statement on GP services in Wales after the North Wales Community Health Council said last week that people were ‘facing a crisis of access’ to GPs and BMA Cymru said ‘an ongoing problem had been made worse by the pandemic’.
Speaking in today’s Business Statement in the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood, who for years has been calling on Labour Ministers to respond to the repeated warnings of a GP crisis across Wales, highlighted a worsening of the problem due to the pandemic and emphasised the urgent need for action on GP services.
He said:
“Although the Covid Pandemic has shone a light on these, warnings to the Welsh Government of a GP crisis in Wales long pre-date this.
“In 2012 both BMA Cymru and the Royal College of General Practitioners relaunched campaigns, warning that Wales faced a GP crisis, that 90 per cent of patient contacts are with General Practice and yet funding as the share of the NHS cake had fallen, and that they had relaunched their campaigns because the Welsh Government didn’t listen.
“At a 2014 BMA Cymru briefing in the Assembly, the Chair of the North Wales Local Medical Committee said “General Practice in North Wales is in crisis, several practices have been unable to fill vacancies and many GPs are seriously considering retirement because of the currently expanding work load”.
“Jump forward … and last Thursday, the North Wales Community Health Council said that people were ‘facing a crisis of access’ to GPs.
“And the Chair of the Welsh GPs Committee at the BMA, which represents Doctors, said problems were developing before Covid, with more GPs being lost to early retirement. I call for an urgent statement accordingly.”
Responding, the Trefnydd, Lesley Griffiths MS, said:
“We see GPs retiring, just like we do in any other sector across Wales, and it is really important that there is that planning, which perhaps we haven't seen as much of in the health service. But, of course, GPs are self-employed, and I know from my own discussions, working with GPs, it is really important that they have that planning within their own practice to make sure that there isn't that gap.
It's also really important that we continue to work very hard with our health boards, because they are responsible for ensuring that their populations have access to GP services.”
Speaking outside the meeting, Mr Isherwood said:
“Shockingly, her response confirmed that this Labour Welsh Government, like its predecessors, is still ignoring years of expert warnings. As BMA Cymru Wales stated last week, ‘an ongoing problem had been made worse by the pandemic’. No wonder they recently wrote to the Welsh Health Minister urging a radical shake-up of the Health and Care system in Wales, with the Chair of the BMA’s Welsh Consultant Committee stating ‘After repeatedly raising concerns over the last few years that the situation was worsening, we are sadly seeing our fears borne out. If action is not taken immediately to resolve this situation then patients will die’.”