5. 5. Plaid Cymru Debate: The Nursing Bursary

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:01 pm on 28 September 2016.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 4:01, 28 September 2016

I’m very pleased to hear this debate being brought forward today by Plaid Cymru because it very much follows on from many of the debates we’ve had—it follows on from our debate last week about workforce planning. We have such a crisis in our workforce planning throughout all strata that I think that this adds to it. We will be supporting this motion.

I did think about adding an amendment to it, because what I would really like, Cabinet Secretary, would be for you to conduct a short inquiry into training support for not just nurses, but other professions within the healthcare industries that have to do significant long-term placements as part of their qualifications. So, I would use the example of a physiotherapist who will have to go out and spend four weeks here, four weeks there. It’s hard to get these placements. Very often, people have to be far away from the university or the college that they’re at, they have to find other board and lodgings, and then they have to get their travel there—the whole lot.

So, we’re going to support this totally, because I think nurses are key. But, my plea is that there is actually an inquiry that looks at the whole range, because, as we have talked about in our various debates, including the very good one we had last week, we need nurses, physiotherapists, clinical psychologists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists. All these people are part of the workforce needs that we have facing us and anything we can do to ensure that these people are able to be attracted into the profession and retained within the training would be very helpful. [Interruption.] Yes, of course, David.