Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 17 March 2020.
Well, Llywydd, the Member is absolutely right to say that the recruitment of A&E consultants is competitive right across the United Kingdom, and there are vacancies in every one of the four home nations. Nonetheless, the number of A&E consultants working in the Welsh NHS has more than doubled over the last decade, and that suggests that despite the very real challenges, there has been some success in the recruitment efforts of individual health boards, and in the efforts that are being made to grow our own pipeline of doctors coming through the system who will be the consultants of the future.
My colleague, Vaughan Gething, has decided that the 'Train. Work. Live' campaign, which has been very successful in recruitment to the Welsh NHS, will have a particular focus on the recruitment of emergency medicine staff over the year ahead, and that will reinforce the efforts that health boards themselves are making to recruit to vacancies.