8. Plaid Cymru Debate: Reducing NHS pressures

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:46 pm on 25 January 2023.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 6:46, 25 January 2023

Last week, I announced a £281 million investment package to support education and training programmes for healthcare professionals in Wales. For the ninth consecutive year, funding in Wales will increase, with an extra 8 per cent for 2023-24, and this will support the highest ever number of training opportunities in Wales. The NHS has more people working in it than at any time before in its history, focusing on prevention and care for members of society across every community in Wales. 

Now, I'm really pleased that there has been a discussion on the prevention approach, and I think actually we could do with a much broader debate on that. So, I'm not going to try and address that today, because I think it's so important. You heard some of the things yesterday that we're planning to do. I do think it's a complicated, it's a sensitive and it's a difficult debate, but we do have to have that debate. And, you know, headlines don't help things, actually. But we do need to make sure that there's an understanding, like John has said—actually, there are things that people can do that don't cost money. But we need that very sensitive, difficult conversation. [Interruption.] Well, we've been having those conversations, and Lynne is responsible for 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'. A massive amount of research has gone into that in terms of how we best approach this issue. We don't pluck these things out of the air; we work with professionals to know what will work best. 

Now, I have said that, by the end of this month, I will be launching the health and care workforce plan. I've got it, I'm just making a few little tweaks—I've made several tweaks, I can assure you, as it's gone along. This has been tested with many of the organisations that I know you've been speaking to as well, and one of the things within that will be about reducing the bill for agency workers. I think we've got to be realistic, we're not going to be able to switch it off overnight, because we'd have to switch off hospitals, and I'm certainly not prepared to do that. 

Now, we know that hospital discharge is having an impact on patient flow. Work is ongoing in a number of areas to strengthen and make improvements so that people are not remaining in hospital beds any longer than is necessary. Now, I, along with Julie Morgan, have been jointly chairing a care action group of senior NHS and local government leaders to drive progress, and we have secured, this winter, 595 additional community beds for step-down care. That's this winter. It has taken huge pressure off—