Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:18 pm on 27 June 2018.
In fact, last year, I issued measures to have a cap on agency staff and that made a real difference in the last quarter of the last year. The challenge now is to not just see the fruits of a full year of that, but to take wider action as well, which is why the ongoing conversation is that we need to come to an end point about changing the use of both agency and bank staff. Because I think there is more opportunity about the way in which the bank is used rather than agency staff, and the way that the quality of care is provided, as well as the financial measures.
So, I am looking for further progress. We've actually managed to take out, largely, some of the higher end agencies as well, but this will continue to be an issue about the financial sustainability of our system. It also means that, in some parts of our healthcare system, we'll need to change the way that care is delivered, because it's actually difficult to recruit people to some of the ways of delivering care that we currently have. So, there is a range of different measures to take, but it will of course be an area that I expect further scrutiny on here, and indeed the director general has regular scrutiny in the Public Accounts Committee on this issue as well.