Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:16 pm on 30 March 2022.
Absolutely. And, no, I don't have the specific information, but, obviously, I'd be willing to look at that. There are always issues about pressures in hospital, and if people are off sick, obviously—and there are a lot of people off sick; we all know somebody who is suffering with COVID at the moment—clearly that is affecting hospital staff as well, which is why you then have to go to those bank staff.
What we're trying to do, and we have been doing for a long time now, is recruiting additional staff. We've recruited 53 per cent more staff than we did 20 years ago. That is a massive increase. You look at our recruitment and our training when it comes to nurses and midwives—significant increases: 73 per cent and 92 per cent; huge increases in the number of people that we're training. But it is difficult, and we've never seen pressure like this before.