CONWY councillors raised concerns with NHS chiefs about a lack of GPs in the county.
The matter was debated at a social care and health scrutiny committee at Coed Pella, where councillors questioned Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board chiefs on the NHS.
Councillors complained of a lack of GP surgeries, claiming patients can’t get an appointment.
Old Colwyn Cllr David Carr grilled Betsi’s chiefs on the lack of access locally to doctors, arguing the case for more health care centres.
He said: “Really, the essential thing we need to do is to improve GP services, because that is the first point of contact. The situation at the moment isn’t really a very adequate situation. GPs have too many patients, and that is the real problem.”
Cllr Carr said the responsibility was on GPs to pay the capital costs if they wanted to move to a suitable building that could accommodate more patients, with the NHS only covering running costs.
He added: “We do need to put money into that. We do need health centres with medical staffing. The situation is, at the moment, in my ward… it’s not working. The GP surgery in my ward has too many patients. But the situation isn’t working for anyone. What we need is some way of being able to accommodate people.
“My suggestion is – but this would require funding – is that we put health centres into areas where we have too many patients. Put health centres in and staff them with medical staff. That’s what we need to do. Because we are getting more people going to A&E because they can’t get a GP appointment. Or some people don’t bother at all, and they get really sick. It is more about prevention.”
Cllr Carr went on to say that some residents were forced to visit GP surgeries out of their area and could only get emergency appointments. He also raised concerns over the way in which GP surgeries were funded, claiming many didn’t want to expand. He added: “The basic things are being missed if you haven’t got emergency appointments. How can you deliver at that local level?”
Chair of the health board Dyfed Edwards was in attendance and admitted provision was not good enough.
“I live in an area where there used to be four GP practices, and now there is one. And I’ve gone from one to the other gradually and ended up with the last GP standing, and that’s serves an operation of 15,000,” he said.
“I agree with your analysis that it’s too much. So as a result, there is massive pressure and difficulties getting an appointment. And as you say, people bypass the GP, going straight through to E.D. and putting extra pressure there. So, we need to do something.”
Mr Edwards then said the NHS had difficulty getting doctors as “attracting GPs to work as GPs wasn’t what it was half a century ago”.
“GPs are looking for something different now. They are looking for different experiences,” he said. “Some of them are looking to do general practice but also be involved in research, perhaps. Some are looking to do part-time work. Some are looking to do general practice but also specialise in something.”
He then pointed to the success of the health centre in the West End of Colwyn Bay offering a wide range of services, although he admitted it was oversubscribed. He also added his own GP surgery was “in a terraced house” which “is not acceptable in 2025”.
“But we are improving the estate and looking at health centres,” he said.
“Now, I’ve got to say it is more complicated than you think – that is what I have discovered anyway – because some GP practices are, what you would term, private businesses and don’t wish to change because they’re happy with their lot. So it is quite difficult to sometimes engage with those GP practices.”
He said the good news was that doctors training at Bangor University would come into the system but that would take time. “But we’ve got to make the offer from the Health Board an attractive one,” he said.
“Not just say, ‘Join this practice; you’ve got 15,000 patients; you’ve got to work seven days a week,’ basically. That’s not going to be attractive for young people coming into the profession.
“So we‘ve got to look at what the offer can be like, and can it be a combination of things and work across boundaries as well. So I think there is a way forward that hopefully will have that impact you highlighted.”
