3. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the impact that the pandemic has had on the ability to recruit future health and social care staff? OQ56607

I thank the Member for that question, Llywydd. The pandemic has vividly demonstrated the vital importance of health and social care services. This heightened awareness, positive changes in working practices and the development of new models of care all provide the basis to recruit future staff, joining the record numbers already employed by our NHS in Wales.

Thank you, First Minister. As you are no doubt aware, the UK Parliament's Health and Social Care Committee, in their damning report, stated that NHS staff and care staff are so burnt out that the future of health and social care services are at risk. Whist their report relates solely to England, I dare say things are not much better on this side of Offa's Dyke. Even before the pandemic hit these shores, our health and care staff were exhausted and overstretched; COVID-19 has only made the situation worse. Having worked in the sector for over a decade, I can tell you first hand that many staff struggle to cope with the burden placed upon them due to staff shortages. Whistleblowers at the weekend spoke of the pressures managers place on staff to work longer hours. Unless urgent action is taken, more and more staff will be forced to leave. First Minister, what will your Government do to ensure that we have sufficient staff working in healthcare in order to reduce the burden on existing staff and ensure patient safety?

Llywydd, I've no doubt at all that the pressures felt by our fantastic health and social care staff are very real. They have worked through one of the most difficult periods in our lifetimes, and they're now working equally hard to try and make up for all those things that have not been possible while dealing with coronavirus, and they're doing so now against the backcloth of the rising delta variant here in Wales, with the realistic prospect that it will be sending more people back into the health and social care system. So, I agree with what Mr Davies has said about the pressures that people have worked under.

What are we doing to help address that? Well, we are employing more staff. At the start of the last Senedd term, there were 74,000 staff in the NHS in Wales; as we go into this term, there are more than 85,000 members of staff. Those are full-time equivalent: in head count, it's well over 100,000, and that's more than 11,000 more staff in the NHS in a single term, and that at a time when his Government in Westminster was cutting the budgets of the Welsh Government year after year after year. I see him shaking his head, but it's a simple matter of fact, a fact not denied by his Government in England, who told us that austerity was something that was completely unavoidable. Despite that, we went on employing more staff in the NHS here in Wales. Over the last six years, we've increased the training places for physiotherapists by 44 per cent, for nurse training places by 72 per cent, for midwifery by 97 per cent. Those people will come out of training, including the new medical school that we're committed to in north Wales, to make sure that staffing in north Wales has a particular focus—they will be available to work in the Welsh health service. They will join those extra staff that are already there, and they will help—they will help. And it's not a solution by itself, I understand, but they will help to address the impact that the last 12 months have had on our staff in health and social care and help to lift that burden from them.

The recruitment of doctors continues to be a problem in the north Wales area, as you're aware, with far too much being spent on locums and far too many vacancies in surgeries. I am very pleased that you have supported the consistent calls made by Plaid Cymru for a new medical school in Bangor, and you've just confirmed that once again, and that this is now being implemented. So, will you confirm that the new medical school could open in the year 2025? That's in four years' time, and that is what the health board has announced recently.

Well, Llywydd, as the Member will know, there is a group that is chaired by Professor Elizabeth Treasure, the vice-chancellor of Aberystwyth University, and herself a very distinguished senior clinician in the Welsh NHS, to develop the plans for the medical school in Bangor. Stage one of their work is complete; stage two of their work is being carried out at the moment. It involves the local health board, it involves professional representatives as well, it involves some other voices who will be directly involved in making sure that that project is properly completed and makes the contribution we all want to see to making sure there are doctors and other members of the clinical team available in north Wales. The team plan to complete stage two of their work in July, and, provided that it arrives in that way, I know that the Minister will look to make a statement to Members here, drawing on their advice and setting out the timetable of the sort to which Siân Gwenllian has referred this afternoon.

It was a—[Inaudible.]—to visit the Princess of Wales Hospital in my constituency of Bridgend last week, and meet with the incredible staff. They have been tremendous throughout the pandemic, and I know that everyone here today recognises, appreciates and thanks them for their bravery, for the sacrifices that they've made, and for their steadfast commitment to patient care. They and I welcome the Welsh Government's commitment to now addressing the waiting list for operations, particularly orthopaedic and ophthalmology, as well as the £100 million funding for our health boards to begin this vital work. As I know our First Minister is aware, in order to clear the backlog of surgical operations, we will need to have enough theatre staff to assist. However, there is currently a shortage of operating department practitioners, leading to a limit on the number of surgeries that can take place. Please will our First Minister tell us how Welsh Government will ensure that we not only attract enough ODPs to help clear the current backlog but also ensure that we have a pipeline of them in the future for our Welsh NHS?

Well, Llywydd, I thank Sarah Murphy for that important question. She's right to highlight the key role of operating department practitioners within the surgical team. She will know from her visit to the Princess of Wales that the current challenge in operating theatres is not simply one of staff, it is also dealing with the restrictions that safe practice in the coronavirus context also requires. She'll have heard, I'm sure, directly from staff about how theatres have to be cleaned thoroughly between every operation, as to how some procedures—where it was possible to have an operating list with eight procedures in a day, they can now only manage three in a day, even when fully staffed, because of coronavirus restrictions. Nevertheless, she is absolutely right to point to operating department practitioners as key.

She will know that we have already announced an extra £100 million of investment in the health service here in Wales to help it with the recovery from the pandemic, and that is already helping to recruit additional theatre staff. But the Member made another important point: it isn't simply recruiting more staff who are already trained; it's making sure that the training system in Wales produces the staff that we will need for the future. And Health Education and Improvement Wales has set out its plans to do that. It has ambitious plans to increase the number of not simply doctors but all those other people on whom the health service depends, and operating department practitioners are amongst that number.