Q&A: Eluned Morgan MS

Member of the Senedd Eluned Morgan MS has been the Welsh Government's Health Minister since May 2021. She answers GP Frontline's questions...

How do you feel general practice has responded to Covid-19?

General practice has played an invaluable role and will remain at the heart of our NHS as we move beyond the emergency response into recovery.

For many people, general practice is their main – and perhaps only – interaction with the NHS and they value this service highly in Wales.

Everyone working in general practice has supported and delivered care across Wales during the most serious global health crisis in our lifetimes, while also playing a key role in delivering the Covid vaccination programme.

GPs have been working under sustained pressure and I have been impressed by their commitment to ensuring the continued delivery of safe and effective services.

There is significant learning to be taken from how GPs quickly adapted to new ways of working, including the introduction of virtual consultations. To date more than 300,000 such consultations have taken place across Wales and we want to embed this way of working to improve access as we address issues caused by the pandemic, including a backlog of care.

I know GPs have a heavy workload, but in some instances, it will be appropriate for them to review people who are waiting for treatment – they know their patients best. We are currently working with GPC Wales to agree how this approach could work to support patients and GPs.

How can Wales balance responding to the immediate pressures on general practice and tackle the broader determinants of poor health outcomes?

We have invested £1m to provide community health checks for chronic conditions. A further £4m has been made available from 1 April 2022, for three years, to support GP practices to increase their staffing capacity, to support changes to access.

Longer term, we have a longstanding 'health-in-all-policies' approach and we use health impact assessments as part of our policy development processes. Work is currently underway to deliver the Health Impact Assessment Regulations, which will help us to further embed this approach by mandating health impact assessments are carried out by certain public bodies in certain circumstances.

What are your ambitions for the digitisation of healthcare?

We continue to support people to make positive choices to live healthier lives and are focusing on specific issues to improve people’s overall health and help tackle deep-rooted health inequalities. There’s so much more we can do to make our health service more efficient – if we can join our systems together to share data in an easier way, this will free up more time for clinicians to spend with patients. I’ve spoken to doctors and staff who have shown me stacks of paper prescriptions that need to be signed every day – time that could be saved if that could be done electronically and those prescriptions were sent to a person’s pharmacy of choice directly.

We want to have the first adopters of e-prescribing in primary care by next year, with a rapid rollout shortly after. Our new NHS Wales App will give people access to more data about their health, giving them more control over their health and wellbeing. They will be able to see their own test results and scans; blood pressure will be able to be remotely monitored and people will be able to see discharge and follow-up letters as soon as they are generated.

What would you like general practice to look like in 10 years' time?

The Primary Care Model for Wales is about informing people to understand how to live longer, healthier, and happier lives and to remain independent and at home for as long as possible. Through this model, GPs, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, optometrists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers and people working in the voluntary sector work together in the local community to plan and provide people with a range of ways to access seamless care and support so they receive the right care at the right time from the right person and service, at or close to home. Information about individuals is shared appropriately to ensure services are joined-up and provided in a timely way across the community. Modern technology, local facilities and services are all used to help people lead healthy lives and to support those who need care.

To provide accessible and sustainable care now and in the future, we are developing and diversifying the workforce, changing ways of working, and better signposting people to a wider range of local services. Our aim is to deliver the right care, at the right time in the right place.

An example of this in practice is the recent change to fit notes – previously only doctors could legally certify fit notes but a change in the law means four other healthcare professions can now do this. •