Vaughan Gething: ...forward our economic resilience and reconstruction mission for Wales and reiterate our commitment to develop a new young person’s guarantee, giving everyone under the age of 25 the offer of work, education or training.
Vaughan Gething: ...pleased to say you can see that continued leadership from Julie James as our housing Minister, improving housing quality stock and the environmental footprint as well. You see it in the work across education, the work we've done and the conversations yesterday with Kirsty Williams and the Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee about that broader approach to children...
Vaughan Gething: ...delivering high-quality healthcare, changing and improving our country, not just as workers, but as friends and community members—people who we live alongside and whose children go to the same schools as ours. I'm very proud of our international links. I look forward to maintaining those international links to both recruit and to help other parts of the world, and I look forward to...
Vaughan Gething: I completely agree, and the Member's right to point out that Welsh Labour have actually done the hard yards in Government to expand medical education and training opportunities in north Wales. We've done that successfully. It's a clear, headline, direct manifesto pledge: if you vote Welsh Labour, then we will see through to a successful conclusion a medical school in north Wales—more...
Vaughan Gething: ...to the British Medical Association about the direct impact that had on their members and on the ability to continue making progress on waiting times. When it comes to the points about the medical school and medical education in north Wales, this Government has a good track record on making decisions to expand opportunities to undertake medical education in north Wales. We're committed to...
Vaughan Gething: Yes. In June 2020, I created a task and finish group to explore the feasibility of proposals put forward by Bangor University and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board for a north Wales school for medical and health sciences. This work has now progressed to the development of a full business case, and, as you'll know, my party has pledged in the forthcoming election to see that to a...
Vaughan Gething: ...of 12 April as a date to reopen more fully. And again, that comes back to the point about having a properly phased return and being able to forecast those changes. And the phased return for schools has meant that we have had some room for alternative manoeuvre, but not to the extent that we could open all non-essential retail at the same time, and so a choice has had to be made. When it...
Vaughan Gething: ...before us today, which are referred to as the No. 5 regulations. We have been clear that our top priority is to enable children to return to face-to-face learning as soon as possible. All primary school pupils and those in qualification years returned on 15 March; all pupils will return to face-to-face teaching and learning after the Easter break on Monday, 12 April. From 13 March, the...
Vaughan Gething: .... The demand for care and support in the population means that already stretched services will not meet future needs unless action is taken. The Health Foundation has used work by the London School of Economics to project the cost of publicly funded adult social care in Wales. This shows that costs could increase by 80 per cent in real terms between 2015 and 2030, and these estimates...
Vaughan Gething: ..., and have an excellent record on supporting health and care staff. We already have a joint workforce strategy for health and social care. We've invested nearly £230 million this year to support education and training for healthcare professionals—the seventh successive year where we have increased funding, and that includes an increase for medical training places. In the last seven...
Vaughan Gething: ...who have kept us going throughout the height of the pandemic in the different ways we've experienced—workers not just in health and social care but in manufacturing, police, the armed forces, education, transport, utilities, local and national Government, postal workers, essential retail, food production and delivery, all of these people have kept us fed, cared for, taught, connected and...
Vaughan Gething: ...regular engagement between the Prime Minister and the First Ministers of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but sadly, that has not been the case over a number of months. On your point about schools, you're right that we could make a policy choice to open all schools on 8 March or 15 March—that is open to Ministers to do so. The point that we have made consistently is that that isn't...
Vaughan Gething: ...face-to-face learning as soon as possible. I'm sure we were all pleased to see foundation phase children and those sitting priority vocational qualifications return on 22 February. The Minister for Education has set out the ambition of the Government for all remaining primary school children and those scheduled to take exams this year to return to face-to-face learning on 15 March. ...
Vaughan Gething: .... So, we have to think of the current levels that we've got and the ability for that to increase further. That's why we've had this scientific evidence and public health advice that we have about schools opening on a phased basis. They continue to be our priority. But we also have some advice that says we have an extra element of headroom available, and we'll need to consider how to use...
Vaughan Gething: ...vaccination as part of the first priority group recommended by the JCVI for phase 2—those people aged between 40 and 49. I recognise there'll be some disappointment around this—those working in education, childcare and the police service, and in the transport sector, for example. I've also heard the case made for retail workers and postal workers, all of whom have worked through the...
Vaughan Gething: ...risk pool co-ordinates an all-Wales consent group to support the development of a unified approach across all health boards on consent matters. That group has produced refreshed training and education packages for clinicians across Wales, including an e-learning system, a series of webinars, and presentations. These are all designed to ensure that clinicians receive up-to-date training on...
Vaughan Gething: ...as well. We're not going to be in a position to have healthcare workers going in and administering the level of tests we're providing. The current tests we've made available to early years and education and health and care will amount to about a quarter of a million tests being delivered each week. We don't now have healthcare staff to deliver all of these tests. We've had to have approval...
Vaughan Gething: ...as well. I know that that's practically been taken on board. For example, we have made sure that my son has an extra layer of clothing because windows in his classroom were open when he returned to school. So, the message is being taken up on ventilation in a much more significant and sustained manner than, to be fair, it would have been at the start of the pandemic. When it comes to the...
Vaughan Gething: ...and care workers in Wales. We have a number of free-to-access health and well-being support apps, like Mind, Sleepio and SilverCloud. We have a range of different resources and, on the Health Education and Improvement Wales website, there's a useful list of what all of those resources are. And it's a matter I regularly discuss with the trade unions in my regular update with them, as well...
Vaughan Gething: ...introduce this duty, but we know we'll need to revise again before the end of this term, and whoever is the Government in the future, to maintain a commitment to continuing to invest in the future education and training of our nursing and wider healthcare workforce. That's why I'm proud to have introduced Health Education and Improvement Wales, amongst other things as well. So, I recognise...
