8. 8. Plaid Cymru Debate: NHS Workforce

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:45 pm on 4 October 2017.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 5:45, 4 October 2017

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I’m grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate, and the opportunity to highlight the significant amount of work already being undertaken by this Government and the national health service. I am sorry, though, that there won’t be more time to answer and debate all of the points made in this debate, and I’m genuinely happy to continue a conversation with Members who are interested in doing so about what we are doing outside of the formal business in the Chamber today.

Again, I set out, as I have done in this room, in committee rooms, and in other settings, that this Government recognises the very real recruitment challenges in a range of our professions and specialities, and recognises that they are more acute in some parts of Wales than others. I understand very well that these challenges can have an impact on the delivery of services. It is, of course, true that this is not a unique challenge that Wales faces, but these are challenges that we need to tackle. We have taken a significant step forward both in ‘Taking Wales Forward’ and our ‘Prosperity for All’ commitments to attract and train more GPs. That’s why we developed the ‘Train. Work. Live’ campaign, working with people across the service and within the profession. That has been a successful campaign, resulting in an increase in our GP fill rate to 91 per cent, a significant step forward. But we will relaunch that campaign later this month in time for the British Medical Journal careers fair, learning from what worked last year and also learning from what didn’t work as well as we wanted to last year as well, and they’re just part of the range of measures that we wish to take. We’ll also be widening that campaign to take in other medical specialities where there are specific and acute recruitment challenges.

We continue to invest in our future medical workforce with our commitment to increase undergraduate medical education in north Wales. We will stick to the collaborative approach between Bangor, Cardiff and Swansea universities, consistent with both my written statement in July, but also the budget agreement agreed with Plaid Cymru on taking this matter forward in practical terms. That will also be part of—