4. What support is the Welsh Government giving to NHS workers during this COVID-19 pandemic? OQ55797

Llywydd, I thank Jayne Bryant for that question. The Welsh Government continues to work in social partnership with employers and health unions to make help available for our dedicated health and social care staff. The exceptional efforts they make on our behalf deserve the support of every one of us.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. Over the last few months, we've seen front-line NHS staff speak out about the reality of fighting this pandemic. Respected consultants in the Aneurin Bevan health board area, such as David Hepburn, Tim Rogerson and Ami Jones, have all voiced their experiences and described the pressure they and their colleagues are facing day in, day out. Staff have worked tirelessly throughout. Early on in the pandemic, they were often in new roles. Many are spending hours upon hours in layers of PPE. They're also feeling the pain of loved ones not able to say goodbye to patients at the end of their life. Our NHS staff have had very little opportunity to rest as more routine services have resumed. They've been heroic throughout this pandemic, but as we go into winter, we all need to remember that they're not superhuman. What support has the Welsh Government been able to put in place to help those on the front line to ensure we look after those who continue to look after us?

Well, Llywydd, can I thank Jayne Bryant for that very telling supplementary question? Can I pay tribute to the clinicians that she mentioned in that supplementary question, for the way in which they speak up on behalf of the front-line experience of so many of their colleagues? And can I just take this chance to condemn the abuse that I know a number of those clinicians have experienced as a result of the work that they have done in communicating directly to people in Wales about what it is like to be a front-line clinician in the NHS during the period of coronavirus? It is shocking and utterly unacceptable the way that some people have chosen to abuse those people who have simply explained to the rest of us what it is like to provide the services on which we all rely.

We go on, as I said, Llywydd, working in social partnership with all those who have an interest in our NHS. I think it was remarkable that earlier in the pandemic we were able to provide 950 individuals with additional clinical skills training so that they could be deployed to help one another and to reinforce people at the front line in dealing with urgent and emergency care services. And I'm very glad indeed that we took an early decision to provide £1 million in additional funding to Cardiff University so that they could make available the health for professionals service, which had previously been available only to doctors in the NHS, to make that available to the whole of the NHS workforce. The toll this pandemic is taking on our front-line staff is not just physical, and it's very real in its physical sense—Jayne Bryant referred to people working those long shifts in PPE equipment—but it is emotional as well. A draining sense of being at the front line has its impact on people's mental health and well-being, and that's why we extended that health for professionals service to all those who work in the NHS here in Wales. 

Diolch, Prif Weinidog, for that answer. First Minister, the opening of the new Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran is imminent; I believe it's this month. It's going to be a great new facility. I know many Assembly Members—Senedd Members we are now—have had a chance to look around that facility during its construction period. But it's also vitally important that it's well staffed, particularly as we go through the COVID-19 pandemic second wave. Nevill Hall and the Royal Gwent are also, of course, dealing at the front line with COVID-19 and cases of that, so can you tell us what steps are being taken to make sure that this great new facility in Cwmbran, serving Monmouthshire, Torfaen and the south-east of Wales, does have not just the building and the facilities it needs, but also staff who are well trained and able to meet the enormous challenges and stresses that have been placed on them at this moment in time, as we've just heard from Jayne Bryant? 

I thank Nick Ramsay for that question and for his continued interest in the development of the Grange University Hospital, which I know he will remember came out of the Clinical Futures work led by staff in the Gwent area. Of course, not only do we need the fantastic facilities that it will provide, but we will need the committed, skilled individuals who we rely on to make the most of those facilities.

I know Nick Ramsay will recognise the fact, Llywydd, that between January and June of this year the overall NHS workforce increased in Wales by 4.8 per cent—an additional 4,000 full-time equivalent staff. The comparable figure for the same period in the previous year was a staff increase of 0.5 per cent, and I think that just demonstrates the extent to which we were successful in drawing people into the front line of the NHS in Wales during the pandemic crisis. The usual time for staff recruitment is October and September, as students come off courses and so on, but we have managed to, in the quieter time of the year normally, increase the staff in Wales by over 4,000. That will undoubtedly have an impact on our ability to provide for staffing in the Grange University Hospital.

Llywydd, this Government has invested not just in the staff that we need here and now but in the staff that we will need in the future. In the last five years, there's been an 89 per cent increase in the number of nurse training places, a 57 per cent increase in radiography training places and a 71 per cent increase in both midwifery and physiotherapy training. That will allow us to go on growing the NHS workforce here in Wales so that fantastic new facilities such as the Grange hospital will be properly staffed, but also that we will have the staff we need in all parts of the NHS throughout Wales. 

Question 5, Neil Hamilton.

You need to unmute yourself, Neil Hamilton. There you go.