Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:38 pm on 29 January 2019.
I'm sure that the First Minister will be aware that one of the issues leading to the problems with agency staffing is problems with retention in the nursing workforce. One of the reasons for these problems of retention, in some cases, is a lack of flexibility. I'm aware of a number of cases where nurses have asked for flexible working patterns on the wards where they're employed, and the local health boards have been unable to provide, or unwilling to provide, those flexible working patterns. Those nurses have then left their positions, gone to work for agencies and ended up in exactly the same wards, doing exactly the same work, costing the national health service more money, but receiving the flexibility that they've asked for, to enable them, for example, to balance their family responsibilities with working in the NHS. If there is one case of this, this is too many, I'm sure the First Minister would agree with me. A number of such cases have been drawn to my attention. What more can the First Minister do, working with the Minister for Health and Social Services, to ensure that local health boards take a more flexible and pragmatic approach to providing nursing staff with flexible working opportunities and to promote the retention of these highly skilled members of staff directly in our national health, rather than employing them through agencies?