The fill rate for Welsh GP training places has increased by 16 percentage points compared to this time last year, from 68% to 84%, following the first recruitment round.
The Welsh Government said this comes as a new financial incentive scheme in targered areas of Wales ‘has made a positive start’, with Pembrokeshire, North Wales East and North Wales West filling 100% of places in the first round of recruitment.
Under the recruitment scheme, Welsh GP trainees receive a £2,000 bursary to cover their final exam fees, with those in areas suffering recruitment difficulties also receiving a £20,000 golden hello dependent on them staying in Wales for their first year of practise.
The Welsh Government added that following readvertising it was ’confident’ that fill rates for Ceredigion and North Wales Central will also improve.
Health secretary Vaughan Gething said: ’We made a commitment in our Programme for Government to continue to invest in primary care and to take action to attract and train more GPs, nurses and other health professionals to Wales.
’To support this, in October we launched a major new campaign to promote Wales as an excellent place for doctors, including GPs, and their families, to train, work and live.
’The results from the Wales Deanery speak for themselves, the campaign has been a success and this is something to celebrate.’
Mr Gething added that there would be a ‘phase two’ of the campaign, which ‘will target nurses in primary care, secondary care and the care home sector and will launch in May’, while ‘future phases’ of the campaign are set to target ‘pharmacists and allied health professionals’.
He said: ‘The significant impact we have made in the first five months bodes well for the future.
‘We continue to deliver on our programme for Government commitment to ensure the people of Wales have the NHS they deserve.’
