Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:12 pm on 14 December 2022.
Thank you. I'm sure that Adam Price will have understood by now that part of the problem in getting people into the hospital is that we can't get them out. So, there are over 1,000 people in our hospitals who shouldn't be there. Part of the problem is because people can't be recruited in local government to work in the care services. So, that inter-relationship is something that everyone needs to understand, and that's why our priority, in our health and care team, the No. 1 priority, was to ensure that we pay the real living wage, and, for me, that's the most important thing in helping with recruitment. And as I've already said, there will be a further announcement as to what we have been doing in this area to work with local government, over many months, to help with that patient flow in getting people into our hospitals, because every bed is taken up, and that, of course, is a problem.
In terms of the strike action on the twenty-first, of course we are still making preparations for that. We will look at how things are going to work tomorrow; a great deal of preparation's been done already. At the moment, we don't intend to use the armed forces, unless that is truly necessary, unless there is a situation that would mean that there would be a serious problem in keeping the public safe. But we have been speaking, for example, to the police in terms of the police helping with resuscitation and so on. So, preparation has been done with the police also.