Paramedics and the Welsh Ambulance Service

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 1:35 pm on 24 February 2021.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 1:35, 24 February 2021

Yes, thank you. I've outlined the increased investment in new vehicles in my initial response. We continue to look at the fleet to make sure it's appropriate, both for the emergency side of the service, but also the urgent care and patient transport side of the service as well.

When it comes to well-being, we've worked with social partners, so that's our NHS Wales employers and trade unions, to have a multilayered well-being offer for health and social care workers in Wales, including in particular paramedics as well. So, there's a confidential Samaritans listening support line, funded by the Welsh Government, dedicated for health and care workers in Wales. We have a number of free-to-access health and well-being support apps, like Mind, Sleepio and SilverCloud. We have a range of different resources and, on the Health Education and Improvement Wales website, there's a useful list of what all of those resources are. And it's a matter I regularly discuss with the trade unions in my regular update with them, as well as the partnership arrangements in place.

On PPE, we continue to have a successful delivery of PPE for our front-line workers. The vast majority of PPE issued—there have been over 647 million items issued in the last year to health and social care—the vast majority were directly sourced by the NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership, with all contracts awarded subject to robust governance. That includes protection from fraudulent or substandard PPE. So, in Wales, on PPE procurement, there have been no party favours, no VIP lane, no chumocracy. Everyone in Wales should take real pride, I believe, in the way we have continued to provide high-quality PPE for our front-line health and social care staff.