Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:38 pm on 29 January 2020.
I do understand, Mike, that the pharmacy is an issue in a lot of hospitals, because they can't dispense the medication at a suitable time for people to go home, and a lot eventually comes at evening time and people are kept in longer than they need. So, that definitely needs to be looked into, and, thank you, Mike, for bringing that up.
Successive Governments have failed to plan for the future, hence a large portion of our budget goes on agency staff. And there has been woefully little workforce planning, which has left our NHS unable to cope with a growing and ageing population, and a lack of planning, which has resulted in us having the worst cancer survival rates in western Europe. So, we need a new approach to healthcare in Wales and this means ensuring that our primary care sector is properly funded. We have a national workforce plan and we prioritise health prevention. We also have to ensure that our social care sector is properly funded. Our NHS can't afford another five years of this mismanagement and I urge colleagues to support this motion.