Part of 3. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:44 pm on 21 June 2017.
I know that you are going to be starting the nurse recruitment drive as well. I think the thing is that we can’t do these in a linear order—we have to do them all in tandem because we have enormous gaps throughout the NHS. Recent statistics are very clear that we are only filling 49 per cent of placements for core medical training. We are running out of doctors in our NHS and they are going off on to locum or just leaving, or we simply don’t have them. So, that means we’ve got a 51 per cent vacancy rate. I’d like you to consider addressing how we might be able to make up for that shortfall. Because, of course, on round 2, when we might fill up a few of those, first, we won’t get all of the 51 per cent, because we would have got them the first time around, and, of course, secondly, we’re getting people for whom Wales is not their first choice, which means they may be less likely to stay here in the long run.
We’re frankly getting people who may not have made the grade the first time around. So, we’re having people who are not the top of their cohort and we want to grab all the excellent ones first if we possibly can. So, I wondered, Cabinet Secretary, if you can tell us what discussions you’re having with organisations such as the hospital trust and the Royal College of Physicians, in order to increase the number of physicians that we can recruit to the Welsh NHS on that first and very important attempt—51 per cent is a big, big shortfall.