I start, as others have, by thanking GPs and their primary care teams for their efforts for their patients every single day. The briefing from the Royal College of General Practitioners rightly calls them “the front door” of the NHS. They make up the service that is in most contact with the public and that is in the best possible position to help us to achieve some of the public health goals that we are rightly proud to have.

I welcome the commitment from the cabinet secretary to speak to those who work on the front line, as well as to patients, about what they want to see from front-line health services.

We need to tackle the issues and challenges that GP services are facing. The pandemic has played a large part in the frailty, deconditioning and complexity of the patients who GPs are dealing with. That is no fault of patients or GPs, but it is a reality that many of them face. Those pressures and that added complexity simply have not gone away, and they will be with us for some time to come.

We also have new conditions for GPs to treat, such as long Covid, as well as advances in how we treat other conditions. I strongly believe that we need to ensure that GPs have sufficient time to update their knowledge and deepen their understanding of complex conditions that they are having to manage. Data is a huge issue across the sector, and I once again call for a single patient record.

There are particular pressures in particular places. I want to touch on some of the interesting work that the Health and Social Care Committee has been doing on remote and rural healthcare. Unsurprisingly, the ability to recruit people into the workforce in rural communities is an issue. Clinicians highlighted to us a range of recruitment difficulties.

Housing came up as a major issue, because of both cost and availability. Some people highlighted to us that, in certain communities, the cost of housing prohibited new workers from moving there in the first place. However, some of the biggest barriers were the types of housing that were available, if any housing was available at all. Cost was highlighted as more often an issue for other members of the multidisciplinary team.

In many rural villages, general practices have only one GP. That causes recruitment challenges, as many GPs want to be part of larger teams for support and collaboration. There are very good wider networks for rural GPs, but some noted that their work can be quite isolating on a day-to-day basis.

Added to that are the issues of an ageing population and the fact that older people can make up a higher proportion of the population in some rural areas. Many people choose to retire to rural locations, which exacerbates the issue. Thought needs to be put into how we can best equip GPs in those areas for the likelihood that the number of older people in their practice areas will increase.

How we deliver primary care services is hugely important across the country, but how we can innovate with GP services in rural areas so that people do not have to travel long distances is particularly so.

Those are just some of the issues that have been raised with the committee as part of the inquiry, which is still on-going. The potential solutions to some of those issues lie in other portfolios within Government, and I hope that the new cabinet secretary will explore those with colleagues.

There is a lot to cover in the debate, but I want to briefly touch on the issue of out-of-hours GPs. They add a huge amount of support and breadth to the urgent care landscape. They are a hugely dedicated team, who do our-of-hours work over and above their normal clinical load. They help to divert people away from A and E but ensure that patients with particular concerns are seen and given help, support and treatment where it is needed. They are an enormously important piece of the GP workforce that we often forget about, but they are hugely valuable.

Our primary care teams are “the front door” of the NHS, and we need to ensure that they get the support and investment that they need.