6. Will the First Minister make a statement on nurse staffing levels in Wales? OAQ54861

Llywydd, the number of nurses and midwives on the professional register in Wales grew by 500 between April and September last year—the strongest rate of growth of any of the four UK nations. 

Thank you for the reply, Minister, but recently, the Royal College of Nursing in Wales produced a report on the implementation of the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act, and the report states that the nursing workforce in Wales is facing a national crisis with a high number of vacancies and the prospect of significant losses of nurses to retirement over the next five to 10 years in Wales. The RCN also called on the Welsh Government to focus on improving nurse retention through ensuring safe nurse staffing levels, access to professional development and implementation of measures to support well-being, good rates of pay, flexible working hours and opportunities. First Minister, what action is your Government taking to develop a retention strategy to alleviate the crisis in nurse staffing levels in Wales, please?

Llywydd, it is because we understand the age profile of the nursing profession in Wales that we have increased the number of training places in Wales by 89 per cent since 2014, and when it comes to retention, Llywydd, we have retained nurse bursaries here in Wales, while his party abandoned them across our border and is having to reintroduce them again to make good their mistake. Now, the Royal College of Nursing, of course, has welcomed the announcement made just before Christmas by my colleague the health Minister that we will, in this Assembly term, extend the scope of the nurse staffing levels Act here in Wales from the acute medical and surgical adult wards, which is where it began, to inpatient paediatric wards before the end of this Assembly term, and the Minister has extended as well funding for the work that is going on for further extension of that Act to adult mental health inpatient wards, to health visiting and to district nursing. That's why having 500 more nurses and midwives in the Welsh NHS in a six-month period between April and September last year is so important. That's part of the reason why we are able to move ahead with extending the scope of that very important Act.