Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 6 December 2022.
First Minister, the other comment that the chair of the BMA made is that, obviously, many more people aren't now full time within the NHS and, actually, choose for various reasons to, obviously, do a shift here and a shift there and can't be classed as whole-time equivalents. Last week, I challenged you on a specific issue about the Royal College of Emergency Medicine's baseline figures. It is a fact that, over the years, we have challenged you on this particular area of staffing, and not one accident and emergency department here in Wales manages to hit that baseline figure when it comes to consultants.
The Presiding Officer might be interested in this: in her own A&E department in Aberystwyth, for example, out of the eight consultants they should have available as the baseline figure from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, they have one. If you go to north Wales, at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, for example, there is only a third of the number. Fifteen are required, and only a third of that number is in that particular A&E department. So, after many years of trying to seek improvement in this particular area and being told that there's a plan in place, what confidence can you give us that the Welsh Government do have a serious workforce plan in place to address not just the A&E deficit of emergency medicine baseline figures, but the deficit across the whole NHS here in Wales that, even now, the profession, as you said, has bravely come forward to highlight today?