More GPs are applying to work and train in Pembrokeshire than at any point in the last five years, a Hywel Dda representative has said.

At a recent meeting of the Hywel Dda Community Health Council (Wednesday, February 6), members asked what was being done to encourage more GPs into the county.

Elaine Lorton from the Hywel Dda Health Board told the committee that Pembrokeshire was seeing training placements filled “for the first time in a lot of years.”

“For a good number of years, we’ve seen a decline in the number of GPs, and a declined in the number of GPs wanting to train in the area,” she said.

“For the first five years I’ve worked with the Health Board we were getting ones and twos [of trainee GPs] coming through. We are now getting six.

The increase in GPs wishing to take up places was put down to a new Welsh Government bursary, which offers £20,000 to doctors to train in areas of Wales which have had long term difficulty filling places, on the condition they will remain in the area for one year of practice afterwards.

She added: “For the first time in more years than anybody can count we are oversubscribed with GP trainees being interviewed against the number of placements.”

Ms Lorton said the health board is looking at ways to create additional training places for situations when they are oversubscribed.

“I felt a real surge of positivity about the new GPs coming to the area and what we are finding with the GPs on the training scheme at the moment, is they come and they want to stay,” she said.

“The vast majority of trainees who come through the Pembrokeshire programme stay in Pembrokeshire.

“It’s not solved everything, there are still challenges and issues, but it is a real coming out of the shadows.”