Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:05 pm on 3 December 2019.
The most successful part of that was not actually winning a claim in a tribunal; it was actually when you were able to change the nature of the relationship in someone's workplace so that they could stay in work, rather than winning a sum of money once they had left the workplace, or running a claim against their employer to a successful conclusion that often led to the end of the workplace relationship in practical terms. I expect the health service to be absolutely part of that. I think that there's a broader point about retaining our staff—and the terms may change, the hours they work may change, the pattern may change—which is to want to start from the position that we want to retain the staff within the service.
On the point about the campaign, 'Train. Work. Live.' has a £0.5 million budget. The incentives are a bit over £400,000—the financial incentives for the medical training including general practice. Actually, I'll be publishing some information on the numbers of people that we think have been drawn into Wales as a result of the marketing campaign, but some of that will be about the combination of factors that you rightly point out. I want to understand the continuing value of the campaign, and part of the challenge is in delivering and understanding what a marketing campaign delivers and, if you take it away, what we think will happen as well.
But, I can honestly say, in each of the events that I have been to at the RCN congress in the last three years, and at the RCM conference, it is hard to overstate the enthusiasm, both from our own delegates at those conferences—. So, actually, our Welsh nurses and midwives are really proud to see Wales on centre stage, and they themselves are real advocates of people to want to come to work in Wales. But, the real enthusiasm from a range of other people about finding out what are the opportunities—. It's not just about turning up to look at a flashy stand and get a free Welsh cake. The level of interest that comes, with the single point of access to go back to people—. It's got better each year. So, it does show real value in what we're doing, and there's a consistent national brand, then, that is actually helping health boards to undertake their own recruitment activity too. So, there's real value. I want to try and understand that properly, and I want to give Assembly Members more detail of that over the next year or so.
In terms of future needs—and this links both to the workforce strategy point that you made and the consultation that has been put out by HEIW and Social Care Wales—this links back to the deliberate reform that we are undertaking of health and social care services in 'A Healthier Wales' and in wanting to understand how training takes place. So, how people are trained to train them for the world of work that they are going to go into, not the world of work that existed 10 years ago; but, more than that, the numbers that we'll need as well. So, it partly links into the workforce strategy. It also partly links into the deliberate reshaping that's going to take place.
The frameworks that we've undertaken for healthcare science and also allied health professionals talk about a wider role for that group of staff. That isn't just then about the staff that we have now. It is about deliberately wanting to reshape the balance in the numbers that we have. Some of this is not just about what we want in the future. It's about our ability to recruit. I don't mean that we don't have people who are capable of providing high-quality training and education for those people within the system here in Wales. It's actually about the fact that lots of that training has to take place within the health service.
In previous conversations that I've had with people on a cross-party basis—for example, about nurse training in Wrexham—one of the biggest limiting steps is actually about the capacity of the health service to have those training places available. So, it's about the capacity of our system to be able to deliver that, and I have chosen the maximalist option in each of the years that I've made that choice, bearing in mind the capacity of the system to adequately and properly train those people, given the experience of training that they should want and need, so that they have a good experience, a decent qualification and want to stay within the system here in Wales.
I will happily write back to the cross-party group on stroke on the specific issue that you raise. It may be helpful if the Chair, whom I recognise is in the room, writes to me with a specific question, and I'll happily come back. On psychiatry places, we have filled 21 out of 21 places. On the issues about teaching and encouraging people to consider a career in the health service, actually, when you talk to professional bodies and to trade unions within the health service, they say that their biggest worry about people choosing not to go into the health service is the way that the health service is regularly portrayed. They worry about the front pages on newspapers, in particular—but online sites as well—that talk about the health service, and people think, 'Well, I don't need to go there to earn a decent living, and why would I do that if I'm then going to get pilloried?' So there's a challenge there about how we talk about the service, and, to be clear, this isn't just an issue in Wales—it is a UK-wide issue, and it's about how we have an honest conversation about the service that doesn't put people off. But there is then, of course, wanting to encourage people to operate to the maximum of their ability. We talk about that in prudent healthcare terms, we talk about that with young people as well. I still take the view, from my old days in NUS Wales—and I'll finish on this point; no, I have one more point—. I'll write to you about the workforce tool, and to Members, because I think there's some detail there I can helpfully provide, but it is part of the GP contract agreed this year. It's a mandatory part, and the tool will be available for practices, clusters and health boards, too. But I'll provide some more detail.
But on this point about careers in the service, by the time people get to years 12 and 13, lower and upper sixth in old money, if you remember that, most people will have made choices already, even if they haven't consciously. So, actually, it's about a much earlier point in time before children leave primary school and at the start of high school, to remind them that they're good enough and they should think about a career, and to have a broader avenue and lookout on the world and what they're capable of. Because that will give us an even wider group of people, and it's why the widening access work that I referred to in my statement is so important, to make sure we have doctors who are like the people they're going to treat and serve in the future.