Speaking in the Senedd today, North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has highlighted the pressures GP practices across Wales are facing and urged the Welsh Government to give them the share of NHS Wales funding both they and their patients desperately need.
Speaking in the Welsh Conservatives Debate on ‘GP Practices and Funding’, Mr Isherwood said “GP Practices are not only a local lifeline for patients, but also alleviate pressures on Welsh Hospitals, saving costs for Health Boards”, and criticised Ministers for failing to listen to repeated warnings about how cuts in their share of funding have impacted them and the service they provide.
He said:
“It has been the worst kind of dumb Health economics to progressively cut their share of NHS Wales funding.
“Of course, this is not new, and Labour Welsh Governments have form for this over many years.
“It is now 12 years since 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.
“It is now a decade since a BMA Cymru briefing in the Assembly, at which 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 workload’.
“It is now 8 years since GPs in North Wales wrote to the then First Minister accusing him of being out of touch with the reality of the challenges facing them. The Royal College of GPs stated then that ‘General Practice in Wales provides 90% of NHS consultations for only 7.8% of the budget. Prolonged underinvestment means that funding for General Practice has been decreasing compared to the overall Welsh NHS. Yet we face the significant challenges of an ageing and growing population’.
“It is now more than 5 years since a BMA Wales report showed that Managed GP Practices do not provide value for money.
“It is now almost 3 years since the BMA Cymru wrote to this Health Minister, now Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, 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’.
“Jumping forward, it is no wonder that BMA Cymru’s ‘Save our Surgeries’ campaign now is calling on the Labour Welsh Government to ensure that 11% of NHS Wales funding is spent on General Practice, and that Wales trains, recruits, and retains enough GPs to move towards the OECD average number of GPs per 1000 people.”
Mr Isherwood went on to refer to the meeting he attended on March 8th with North-East Wales GPs, at their request, to hear about the many challenges they are facing in Primary Care, stating they informed MSs:
- “that the Health Board’s Managed Practices are not providing the same level of continuity of care, patient satisfaction rates, out of hours attendance rates, preventative work or accountability as GMS Practices, and that it is in the Health Board’s interest to support the GMS Practice model.
- “that GPs would like to provide more services closer to patients’ homes as part of ‘A Healthier Wales’;
- “that they have the expertise to do this, but need political support to shift the funding from secondary care and have appropriate facilities to do so.
- “That they would like to be able to triage patients waiting in ambulances outside A&E Departments, which would improve the patient experience whilst reducing both waiting times and hospital admissions.
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- “And that the future of primary care needs to be secured by placing appropriate resources in place now.”
Mr Isherwood added:
“Convenient access to healthcare from GPs in General Practice is key to the future of the Welsh NHS.
“It is more cost effective to care for patients in a primary care setting than elsewhere in the Health Service and by ensuring decent access to GP services we can help to keep our population healthier for longer, enable more people to successfully manage their conditions in the community, and avoid unnecessary and expensive hospital admissions.
“But General Practice cannot do this without adequate resources. A move from Labour denial to essential action is long overdue.”
