Welsh election frontrunners pledge to nearly double general practice spending

The frontrunner party for next year’s Welsh Assembly (Senedd) elections has pledged to nearly double general practice spending as a proportion of the Welsh NHS budget. 

Speaking at the Plaid Cymru conference in Swansea on Saturday (11 October), health spokesperson Mabon ap Gwynfor MS said the party would increase the proportion allocated to general medical services (GMS) from around 6% to 11%, should it win the election. 

Plaid are currently polling at 30%, just in front of Reform UK (29%), according to a YouGov survey conducted last month. Meanwhile, current Welsh leaders Labour are on just 14%.

Mr ap Gwnyfor also pledged to recruit 500 extra GPs to bring Wales ‘closer to the OECD average for workforce capacity’. 

He said: ‘Over recent years, the proportion of the health budget allocated to general medical services has shrunk to around 6%.  

‘It is little wonder, therefore, that the number of GP practices has decreased by 27% in the past two decades, and by 7% since the pandemic alone.’

A Plaid Government would restore ‘the share of General Medical Services within the overall health budget to at least 8.7%, with the aim of eventually reaching 11%’, he said. 

The current 6% estimation aligns BMA Cymru Wales analysis which suggested 6.01% of the NHS budget in Wales is invested into GMS – approximately £639m of a total £10.4bn. 

The report, published this year, calculated an additional £292.7m investment was needed within three years to reach 8.7%, and £525.7m to reach 11% spending in within five years. 

Welsh GPs received a 4% pay uplift for 2025/26 after the Welsh Government accepted recommendations made by the doctors’ pay review body. 

A Plaid Cymru spokesperson told Pulse it would not assign a timeline to the 11% spending commitment but said the process ‘will have started in earnest’ by the end of a Plaid-led Government.

The spokesperson said: ‘A Plaid Cymru Government would, in its first term, develop a roadmap outlining how a sustainable and incremental shift in resources towards our long neglected primary care sector could be achieved.

‘This will necessarily require close engagement with all major health boards – many of whom fully recognise the unsustainable nature of current spending on health – to secure pan-Wales strategic buy-in.

‘It would be disingenuous for us to put a definitive date on reaching the target of 11% before these important conversations have taken place – but we are confident that by the end of a Plaid Cymru Government this process will have started in earnest.’

Negotiations for the 2025/26 GP contract in Wales are still due to take place. The BMA’s GP committee in Wales only accepted a contract offer for the 2024/25 contract in January, including a £23m ‘practice stabilisation payment’ and an assurance from the Government that new negotiations for the next financial year would begin as early as possible. 

Mr ab Gwynfor also said his party would reform the Carr-Hill funding formula which currently ‘undervalues general practice and penalises surgeries in more deprived areas’. 

Earlier this month, the UK Government said it had commenced a six-month review of the Carr-Hill formula. 

Citing Pulse’s award-winning investigation into practice closures, the Government said that data shows that on average the GP practices that close for good are in areas with areas of higher deprivation. 

Last month, BMA Cymru Wales called on the next Welsh Government to develop a GP-specific workforce strategy to fix GP unemployment. 

According to its manifesto, the union also wants a plan to be developed for ‘a national safe standard for working’, including a maximum number of patients per GP per working day. 

Labour has led the Government since the Senedd was created in 1999, with the next election scheduled for May 2026. Pulse has contacted the Wales Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care to respond to Plaid’s pledge.