Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 1:37 pm on 4 November 2020.
Well, Dr Lloyd accurately set out the challenge in the rise in people waiting that we acknowledge is a direct consequence of the action we've had to take to keep people alive during the pandemic. And that difficult balance in the choices we make and the different harms that are caused is very much in the minds of myself and other ministerial colleagues in all of the choices we make. I've also said before that we're going to need to look after our staff not just through the rest of the course of this pandemic, but in the future, because there is a very real mental health toll on our staff, from the treatment they've had to provide and the circumstances in which they've had to do that to keep our people well and alive. So, in the future, I think we'll see a drop-off in staff as we need to deal with and address some of the longer term challenges that will come from that, and that's why the investment choices we've already made are so important, in our training numbers and in the progress we've made, for example, on recruiting more people into general practice and secondary care.
So, yes, we'll look again to maximise our opportunities to recruit and to retain more staff, but we should never forget that the workforce of the future is already here in substantial numbers. The people who we'll have serving our communities in the national health service for the next five years are almost all here already. So, we'll look after our staff for the future, when they're going to join the national health service, and crucially take care of all of our staff in primary and secondary care who are here right now, serving each and every one of us.