Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer. Health is the first law of the land, therefore we all want to see the NHS in Wales delivering high-quality healthcare. To achieve this, we need a well-resourced and high-performing workforce. However, it is clear that the recruitment and retention of front-line staff has become a major challenge facing the NHS in Wales today.

We all know that NHS staff are working tirelessly to meet the demands of patient healthcare. But doctors in both primary and secondary care are reporting increasing and unmanageable workloads.

Presiding Officer, since 2009-10, demand on our hospitals has risen by 2.5 per cent—22,000 more consultant episodes took place in 2014-15. A recent survey by the British Medical Association found that 30 per cent of junior doctors said their workload was unsustainable and unmanageable. These pressures are reflected in increasing stress-related illnesses among NHS staff. A third of NHS staff in Wales report having suffered work-related stress or illnesses due to stress in the past year. Last year, stress-related illnesses concerning anxiety, depression and other conditions resulted in 13,400 days lost by ambulance service staff only.

Recruiting staff to ease these pressures has proved a problem. Health boards face difficulty in filling these vacancies. Just under 17 per cent of all junior doctor positions are unfilled in Wales. This equates to a shortage of 3,000—sorry, 331 doctors are actually short at the moment in Wales. In September last year, 1,240 positions were unfilled in Wales. The highest number of vacancies was in my own area, Nye Bevan health board—260 positions were unfilled. This failure to recruit has had serious financial consequences: more than £60 million has been spent on agency nursing staff in the last five years. Although it is vital that gaps in nursing coverage should be plugged, this is not sustainable in the long term, and strategies need to be changed.

Evidence exists that the problem of staff shortages is likely to grow. The BMA reports that an increasing number of doctors are planning or have considered early retirement. An ageing workforce, combined with difficulty in recruiting trainees demonstrates the need to address these challenges as a matter of urgency. We need to train more new doctors in primary care in Wales. According to BMA, the overall number of training places for GPs in Wales remains static. GPs and practice nurses are at the heart of service delivery. Recruitment and retention of these staff must be a priority for this Government. We need a clear strategy from the Welsh Government for future workforce planning. Closer cross-border working and effective incentives must be used to fill geographical and specialist gaps in our health service.

We must provide the skills to adopt the modern healthcare needs that we want in Wales. Traditional models of care are becoming increasingly unsuitable for today’s healthcare needs. The delivery of healthcare is a fast-changing world. Education and research are driving forward innovation. We must ensure the skills of the existing workforce are updated continuously to deliver real change. We must shift the emphasis in the training and education budget to fund continual professional development in Wales, and we must monitor it.

We need effective public health initiatives also to relieve the burden on NHS finances and release money for front-line core services. Presiding Officer, I know two doctors. Their parents had Pakistani, poor backgrounds. One was a market trader, another, who died, was also selling clothes door to door. Both are young doctors. I meet them virtually week after week. One said, ‘Uncle, I’m working in a hospital, but, believe me, my family life is shattered’, because he’s too tired to go home and look after his family. There are a lot of things we can discuss about these doctors’ problems also that haven’t been considered in this Chamber yet.

Presiding Officer, the Welsh Government must bring forward a clear strategy, address the problem of recruitment and retention of NHS staff—all, right from carers to the consultants. This is vital if we are to create the well-resourced and high-performing NHS that the people of Wales need and deserve here. Thank you.