4. How is the Welsh Government supporting staff in the Welsh NHS? OAQ54812

Llywydd, the Welsh Government supports NHS staff through increased professional education and training, prioritising recruitment and retention and taking action to ensure that health and well-being is valued and protected in the workplace.

Thank you. Well, last week, nearly four years after the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016 received Royal Assent, your health Minister issued a short statement stating only that the all-Wales nurse staffing programme is driving the exploratory work of extending the 2016 Act. At the end of last month, the Royal College of Nursing in Wales launched its progress and challenge report on the implementation of the Act, which said that the nursing workforce in Wales is facing a national crisis: the high number of vacancies, estimated by them at around 1,600 minimum, are compounded by greater shortages in the care home sector and the prospect of significant losses to retirement over the next five to 10 years. How, therefore, does the Welsh Government—do you—respond to the questions they posed for the Welsh Government in the context of north Wales? How are the special measures arrangements for Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board monitoring and supporting the board to be compliant with the Act? Will you increase student nursing numbers, as the health board has requested, and will you support the placement of non-commissioned student nurses from Glyndŵr University, as the health board has requested?

I thank the Member for the question. I attended the RCN event to celebrate the passing onto the statute book of the safe nurse staffing Act here in Wales and everything that has been done since to make sure that there are the right number of nurses in the right set of circumstances on every ward. They welcomed the fact that the Minister is progressing to make the impact of that Act felt in new settings. I spoke with many nurses that evening, Llywydd. I spoke particularly to a group of nurses from north Wales, who told me how much more difficult their lives are made by the persistent criticisms of that board, particularly from members of the party opposite—how that does make it more difficult to recruit and retain people in that health board. [Interruption.] Those are the words of nurses talking to me. I'm just telling you what they said about your party and its impact on their daily working lives.

Here, in the Welsh Government, we have increased nurse training places by 89 per cent since we began our six-year journey of increasing every single year the amount of investment that we make in the training of medical and professions allied to medicine here in Wales. We deal every day with the impact that Brexit is having— another party policy of his party—particularly an impact in north Wales, where staff that were recruited to come and work here in Wales from the Republic of Ireland and Spain have felt the chill of his party's Brexit rhetoric and have decided to make their futures elsewhere rather than here in Wales. And that is particularly the case, Llywydd, in the care home sector to which the Member made reference in his question. The impact of Brexit in our care home sector, whether that is in nurses who are qualified, whether it's in care home staff, will be real and felt in the lives of people here in Wales. 

We go on doing everything we can through our 'Train. Work. Live.' programme and everything else to make sure that we have the staff we need here in the Welsh health service. It's not helped by many of the things that we get told on the floor of this Assembly by him and his party. 

I'm sure the First Minister will agree with me that one of the key factors for any workforce to feel safe and supported is if they feel that there are proper systems in place to enable them to effectively raise concerns if they see something that they feel is wrong, if they see practices that they don't feel are safe, if they see that there are practices that they don't feel are respectful and effective. I'm sure the First Minister will be aware that there are concerns that our current practices here in Wales are not sufficiently independent, and those concerns are raised by both parents and families and also by professional organisations. Can the First Minister say whether or not he is convinced that we are putting the right steps in place here in Wales to ensure that staff can be supported when they raise concerns, and will he undertake to have a further discussions with the Minister for Health and Social Services to reassure himself that there is no more that we can do to ensure that concerns are raised safely—more that we can do and are not currently doing?  

Well, I entirely agree, Llywydd, with what Helen Mary Jones has said about the importance of a culture in our public services and in the health service that people who have concerns know that, when those concerns are raised, they will be listened to respectfully; they will be regarded as having the expertise that people who work in the services at the front line have, when they see things that they believe are going wrong or could be done in a better way. When I was the health Minister working with Vaughan Gething, we jointly commissioned Keith Evans to produce the 'Using the Gift of Complaints' report. Keith Evans, as you know, was a very senior executive in Panasonic and he brought to the NHS that sense of how, if someone has taken the trouble—whether it's a member of staff or a patient, if they have taken the trouble to let you know about their experience and how they think things should be put right, you should regard that not as a complaint to be worried about, but as a gift that that person is making to you, because it is their contribution. As people tell you time after time in Wales, if they take such an action, it's in order to make sure that somebody else doesn't experience something that they have seen or they themselves have gone through. And of course we keep that under review. We're going to be reviewing the 'Putting Things Right' policy over the coming months, and the health Minister and I regularly discuss ways in which we can do what we can to create the sort of culture to which Helen Mary Jones referred.    

First Minister, we all know the pressure the NHS staff are under, especially at this time of year. Another Christmas and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board remains still under special measures. Will the north Wales health board still be under your Government's control and supervision next Christmas? 

Well, I'll answer that question this time next year, Llywydd.