Health Committee calls for urgent action to improve workforce planning

The Assembly’s Health, Wellbeing and Local Government Committee today calls for urgent action from the Welsh Government to improve workforce planning in health and social care.

The Committee has carried out an inquiry into workforce planning found that although the Government recognised the importance of the issue, there is only one trained workforce planner currently employed by the NHS in Wales.

The Committee’s report, published today, says: “that planning is too often based on historic patterns rather than on future needs, particularly the need to develop more community based services. Those with relevant expertise, particularly allied health professionals (such as speech and occupational therapists) and the voluntary sector, are not as closely involved in workforce planning as they should be  Local Health Boards do not have the staff resources or the strategic perspective to contribute meaningfully to work force planning. In social care, planning is often diffuse with insufficient attention paid to wider regional and strategic goals.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including addressing the lack of capacity in LHBs and reviewing the arrangements for involving allied health professionals in workforce planning.

The Committee also recommends that the Welsh Government should take action to combat a shortage of dentists, doctors and nurses by:

• Significantly increasing the number of undergraduate dental training places in Wales.

• Investigating whether offering additional bursaries or other financial incentives could encourage more newly qualified doctors to complete their postgraduate training in areas of shortage in Wales.

• Encouraging Local Health Boards to employ more salaried GPs and dentists.

• Looking at the practicalities of introducing a guaranteed employment or “internship” scheme for newly qualified nurses and for allied health professionals similar to the scheme that has been introduced in Scotland.

Jonathan Morgan AM, Chair of the Committee, said: “We are extremely fortunate to have highly committed, hard working and professional staff running our health and social care services in Wales.  These services rely on high quality, well trained staff and making sure the right staff, with the right skills, in the right numbers are employed is the essential foundation to any drive to improve services to the public.  Getting it wrong means that improvements are more difficult to achieve and, at worst, can lead to failing or poor services.

“It is of fundamental importance, therefore, that the system for planning the staff needs of our health and social care services is as rigorous and robust as possible.  We entrust the care of some of our most vulnerable people to these services and all of us depend on them when we are at our most vulnerable.”