Primary Health Care (Hansard, 18 December 1997)

§ Mr. Win Griffiths

On 17 July I announced a comprehensive package of measures designed to promote primary and community health care in Wales. Some £2.5 million has been set aside for these proposals, which includean Equity Fund of £500,000 to address inequalities in Primary Care an additional £500,000 investment in training and education in general practice £300,000 to implement pilot schemes under the Primary Care Act a Primary Care Development Fund of £250,000 to fund innovative projects £200,000 to promote the wider use of pharmacists a further £250,000 made available to attract more dentists into Wales £150,000 to train nurses and health visitors to prescribe certain drugs establishing a fraud unit to address the problem of prescription fraud.

The NHS (Primary Care) Act 1997 allows those who wish to have additional flexibility, the opportunity to pilot different models for providing primary care services. These pilots offer scope to test new ideas with a view to improving the services presently available.

I shall shortly be publishing a White Paper on replacing the NHS internal market in Wales and this will include further proposals for developing primary care. The draft health authority allocations [to be] published on 15 December shows that health authorities in Wales will receive a 5 per cent. real terms increase in their cash limited allocations for General Medical Services for next year.