Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:38 pm on 13 July 2016.
We’re committed to a 10-year workforce strategy; we’re working through that with our partners and stakeholders. We’ve had the Jenkins review and I expect to see advice on that in the near future. We’ve also had the review undertaken by Robin Williams, the former vice-chancellor of Swansea University, on education and training. So, we’re properly considering where we are, and what we want to do in the future. It has to take account of the health service we have and the health service we want to have as well. And this is a really big challenge for us, regardless of our political shades and colours, because you made the point that you expect there will be more NHS staff in virtually every single grade and profession. That is the demand, and that is the expectation, at a time of austerity. So, it means that there are really difficult choices for the health service, let alone for every other part of the public service, in the way in which we spend Government money. So, we have to have an honest discussion about what we can do and the budget choices that we make, and in the discussions each party will have an involvement around our budget, and then what we actually can do with the resource that we have. But I’m confident that, in the way that we are currently working, we will be able to provide a workforce strategy that our partners will buy into and support. You only need to look over the border again to see what happens when you don’t have that level of agreement. But I won’t pretend to you or anyone else in this Chamber that, by producing a workforce strategy, everything will be easy, because it will not. We have very real challenges; some of them are across every health system in the UK, but I’m certain that we will be able to match our ambition with our ability to recruit staff at the right grade and at the right point to deliver the sort of quality of care that everyone has the right to expect here in Wales.