I'd like to thank the Chair of the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee, Mark Isherwood, members of the committee and staff for conducting an inquiry into care home commissioning in response to the publication of the commissioner's report back in December 2021. Care homes across Wales require high levels of staffing and dedicated staff to provide the best possible care to patients. Although many carers provide the dedicated care that's needed, it's also important to highlight the role of nurses in care homes in providing care in challenging and complex circumstances. Equally, it's important to highlight how nurses in care homes play a role in reducing hospital admissions, which supports the function of the NHS and opens up more beds in our hospitals.

It's unfortunate that around two in five care homes provide nurses, and I strongly believe that the Welsh Government should be encouraging more nurses in care homes. I recognise that there is a wider nursing recruitment crisis in the Welsh NHS, and this is not something the Welsh Government can fix overnight, but it highlights that the Welsh Government must address the lack of recruitment and lack of retention amongst nurses. I agree with the committee that there should be concern over the ability of care homes to provide high-quality care due to severe shortages. Although in the ideal world we would have nurses in all care homes, this cannot be the reality at the moment.

We must recognise the right approach taken by the committee in recognising the role of volunteers in aiding the care of care home residents, but they should not be taking the place of professional staff in providing the primary care. Although volunteering can give young people the skills to begin a lifelong career in care, they must not be used as a replacement to professional staff whilst the Government tries to promote recruitment and retention.

Care homes play a vital role in ensuring that elderly people and those most in need of care can indeed receive the services they need in a safe and homely environment. But one of the biggest problems facing care homes currently is the social care staff recruitment and retention. What we need to achieve is making a career in social care more attractive. As mentioned in the Health and Social Care Committee's debate into hospital discharges last week, social care staff don't just work 9 to 5 Monday to Friday, they work weekends, nights, unsociable hours, sleep-ins. What they need is a Welsh Government that supports their and my calls for better pay for social care workers.

The Welsh Government stand up in this Chamber and bask in the glory of paying the real living wage, but £9.90 just isn't enough, particularly given the current living pressures we face. Social care workers are some of the lowest paid workers in the labour market, despite their dedication to helping our most vulnerable. Maybe if the Welsh Government stopped funding airports and pet projects, then aligning care social care staff pay with NHS pay scales might become more achievable. I believe it's achievable, and I'd be grateful if the Minister could again address this in her response to the debate this afternoon.

If we can reward our nurses, social care workers and front-line staff, not only will we be making the sector more attractive, but we will also be improving a lot of the wider concern surrounding healthcare as we struggle to tackle the problem of delayed transfers of care and giving people the care they need when they need it the most. It runs throughout the whole system, Deputy Llywydd. If we can improve discharge rates to care homes, then we'll be freeing up hospital beds, bettering waiting times in emergency departments and playing our part in improving ambulance waiting times. I'm not trying to say that this is the single, definitive path to solving all the world's problems, but I certainly believe that it will go a long way to helping some of the chronic problems we face in our health and social care systems in north Wales and across Wales as a whole. Let's be ambitious and do all we can to deliver the best possible services to the people who need it the most. Diolch