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Mr David Rees AM

Health & Social Care Committee

National Assembly for Wales

Tŷ Hywel
Cardiff Bay
CF99 1NA

 

 

 

10th February 2015

 

Dear Mr Rees, 

 

 

Health and Social Care Committee’s inquiry on the GP workforce

 

 

As Chair of the BMA’s General Practice Committee in Wales (GPCW) I very much appreciated the opportunity to contribute to the Health and Social Care Committee’s inquiry on the GP workforce last week (29th January).

 

In following up from that meeting, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight two papers which were referenced during the meeting, namely:

 

·         GPCW’s strategy document ‘A Prescription for a Healthy Future’: Chapter 2 of which is dedicated to the GP workforce and offers a number of recommendations for ensuring the sustainability of general practice in Wales. The strategy document compliments our written evidence and can be found here.

 

·         The 2011 report‘International Profiles of Health Care Systems’ by the Commonwealth Fund: which shows that the independent contractor model of general practice is recognised throughout the world as one of the most cost effective, high quality means to deliver care. It finds that people in Britain have among the fastest access to GPs, the best coordinated care and good patient doctor relationships – despite the fact that per capita spending in the UK is the third lowest of all the 11 countries examined.

 

I trust that the content and recommendations in our written evidence paper, along with and the comments offered by myself and colleagues during last week’s meeting, will be of use in your deliberations as you consider the future of the GP workforce in Wales.

 

GPCW is wholly committed to working with Government, employers, the Wales Deanery, Royal Colleges and others to address the unprecedented challenges faced by general practice and to ensure the sustainability of GP services in Wales.

 

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions or wish to discuss any aspect of our evidence, or strategy document, further.

 

Thank you for the invitation to contribute to this inquiry - I very much look forward to the release of the Committee’s conclusions.

 

Yours Sincerely,

Charlotte Jones.JPG

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Charlotte Jones

Chair, GPC Wales