Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:09 pm on 15 January 2020.
Thank you for that and, of course, I heard the response you gave to the Member for Arfon when she raised a very similar question earlier on, but I just want to talk about gaps in the diagnostic workforce. And if I was to take an example, such as histopathologists, since the new junior doctor contract was introduced in England in 2016, a significant difference between the pay given to trainees studying histopathology in Wales and those across the border in England has developed, meaning that if you're a histopathologist working in England, you'll earn an extra £60,000 over the course of your career compared to a counterpart in Wales. And there is a really strong view from stakeholders that this is contributing, in part—it's not all of it, but it's contributing—to the 40 per cent drop-out rate of trainees from the Welsh training programme since 2017. Forty per cent. That's a shockingly high number. So, given these problems facing the workforce and given that they'll continue to have a severe impact, ultimately, on the patients and on our ability to do an early diagnosis of cancer and therefore improve people's quality of life, can you please outline what your Government is doing to resolve this problem and also provide a time frame as to when any action would take place?