6. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Increasing Allied Health Professionals in Primary and Community Care

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:03 pm on 24 January 2023.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 5:03, 24 January 2023

Thank you very much. So, how it’s allocated, obviously this will be proportionate to the population, so we’ll make sure that that reflects the population needs, obviously. Just in terms of how many allied health professionals we’ve got in Wales, we’ve got about 9,267 at the moment. Just to give you an idea, we’ve got about 2,000 occupational therapists, we’ve got 2,455 physiotherapists, we’ve got 159 arts therapists, which I think is rather wonderful, and we’ve got 530 dieticians. So, there are lots and lots of them already, but what is clear is that this can take a lot of pressure off not just our primary services, but also our secondary services.

It is multi-annual funding, so this £5 million will be built in for the future. They will absolutely be based in the community. Where in the community depends on what structures exist in that community, obviously. So, there will be some very vibrant community hubs, there'll be others where there'll be GP surgeries, so it depends on what's right for that community.

Just in terms of trained people, obviously we published Health Education and Improvement Wales's improvement training plan last week, and just to let you know, for example, physiotherapist training places will increase next year to 180, occupational therapist training places to 197 and paramedics up to 120. All of that means that those are all new people who will be coming on, and, obviously, that's a pipeline that is already developed, so we're building on what's there. The great thing is they'll come out trained and now we can give them jobs, because that's what this funding does.

And then, just in terms of modernising digital systems, you're aware that I spend a lot of time on digital; I had another meeting with the digital team this week. I think getting a platform for work in the community will be something. There are lots of different platforms at the moment and what we need to do is to make sure that they all connect, so there's probably a bit of work to do around that. But we've got so much being done in the digital space already, I'd quite like to land what we've got first before going on to the next bit.