Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:45 pm on 25 September 2019.
Minister, I'm very pleased to hear the answer you've just given and the efforts the Welsh Government are putting into developing and training more nurses across the area. I speak to nurses—it's not just nurses, but other professionals across the health service—and I want to praise the work that they do, because many of them, if not all of them, go above and beyond their normal working conditions and actually put a lot of effort in, but it takes a toll on the nurses and other staff. They get to a point where they just can't take any more, and they have to, therefore, look to get out early.
You've talked about flexible working. I've raised this with my own health board on occasion. Will you look at opportunities, because some of the nurses who are leaving and going to agencies do it because they want to have greater control over the hours they work? They want to have the ability to have, actually, a better work-life balance with their families. Therefore, will you look at the flexibility of working contracts so that nurses can, actually, have that within the NHS, without having to go to an agency to have that work-life balance that makes the difference to them? It shows that they are cared for and they are well respected by the system, not just by the patients.