Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Increasing capacity is a key commitment in our planned care recovery plan. This is supported by an annual recurrent commitment of £170 million, together with £15 million for transformation. In 2022-23, we have seen additional capacity in Cardiff and Vale, Swansea bay and Hywel Dda. All health boards are developing local and regional plans for 2023-24.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: That's just not true.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: —the system. Whilst in England they made an announcement that they were going to deliver 7,000, I think they're just starting on sending the money out now. So, I think it's probably worth recognising, because I can't tell you how much work that has been—really granular work, working with every local authority, every health board, making that delivery happen. It's been really difficult. ...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: No, I won't take an intervention. The Welsh Government is committed to providing the NHS with the workforce it needs to meet ever-increasing demand. We're achieving this through increased training places, encouraging young people to take up health professions and recruiting outside Wales when necessary. Last week, I announced a £281 million investment—. Can you stop, please? Do you want to...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Last week, I announced a £281 million investment package to support education and training programmes for healthcare professionals in Wales. For the ninth consecutive year, funding in Wales will increase, with an extra 8 per cent for 2023-24, and this will support the highest ever number of training opportunities in Wales. The NHS has more people working in it than at any time before in its...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to thank Plaid Cymru for allowing me another opportunity to set out what we're already doing to reform and support the NHS, at a time when it's under more pressure than it's ever been in its history. And I'm pleased to see that, many of the points set out in the resolution, we are already delivering on through a whole series of actions, and actions...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Formally.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much. It's great to hear that that facility in Wrexham is up and running, and that they're training those people in Llandrillo as well. As I mentioned earlier, I think support workers are going to be absolutely key, and once you get them on the path, then maybe they'll want to upgrade and whatever, but let's get them into that space first. So, I think that's very exciting. The...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much, Gareth. I was aware that I was speaking with an AHP expert in our midst today, so I was a little bit nervous with you being in the audience here. So, there we go. Physiotherapy is a key part of the treatment that we are hoping to offer here. For me, one of the key things we need to focus on is prehabilitation before surgery—and I've got another expert who will understand...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much. I'd just like to confirm that I agree with you that this can't be just reactive; it can't be about, 'How do we get people out of hospital?' It's about avoiding hospital admission. That's key for me. But, if they do go into hospital, there's some great examples already around Wales where we have hospital to home, so support is there and they're being monitored digitally. So,...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much, Jack. And I can confirm that this £5 million is recurrent, and that means it's sustainable, that means managers can plan ahead with confidence, and that means that people will be able to feel confident, once they're appointed, that they will have a long-term future. In addition to the wider investment that we're delivering in transformation, it's really important that we...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you, Rhun, and it's lovely to have a positive response when we do talk about health, so thank you for that. These are new people who we're welcoming into the system. When you talk about funding, we have to make choices, and we have chosen to bring more people into this role. And evidently, therefore, you have to make a choice when you're making that choice, and we could have provided...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much. So, how it’s allocated, obviously this will be proportionate to the population, so we’ll make sure that that reflects the population needs, obviously. Just in terms of how many allied health professionals we’ve got in Wales, we’ve got about 9,267 at the moment. Just to give you an idea, we’ve got about 2,000 occupational therapists, we’ve got 2,455...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: We have already invested significantly in innovative community services. Our regional integration fund provides more than £144 million to support six national models of integrated care. These models include community-based prevention and community co-ordination, complex care closer to home and home-from-hospital services. I am taking the opportunity today to reiterate my expectation that the...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch yn fawr. 'Looking Forward Together: The Allied Health Professions Framework for Wales' identifies the changes required both by allied health professionals and their employers to ensure health and social care secures the highest quality and value from these important professions. 'A Healthier Wales' sets out our vision for enabling people to live at home, as independently as possible,...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: I'd just like to say something also about the HEIW education plan that was published today. It's absolutely right that we need more nurses, and that's why we've put an 8 per cent increase in terms of the money we're putting into training people: £281 million will be invested in training the next generation of NHS workers, and that includes the fact that we will have 400 more nurse training...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: In terms of waiting lists in general, there was a reduction in the total number of people awaiting treatment in October, and this is a trend that I hope will continue over the next few months. It's interesting to note that the total number of open pathways in England increased by 21 per cent over the past 12 months from October, whilst the number in Wales increased by only 10 per cent during...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: You have a situation where we have a co-operation agreement, and there's money in the budget. If you're saying that we have to re-prioritise everything, then I think we've got to just be absolutely clear that you have made some decisions. You've made some political decisions, and you have to stand by those. Now, the system, particularly over Christmas, was under pressure like the NHS has...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Okay.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Okay. Well, that's fine. Well, if it is top of the list, I'm just quite intrigued, then—. I'm quite intrigued, we have a co-operation agreement; there is hardly a mention of health in your co-operation agreement. Mental health is there; not a word about health. And I think it's really important for people to understand that we have to release money from somewhere, and I can't see you...
