Welsh Labour

Speeches and questions

Speeches and questions in Plenary and in committees, newest first. The Llywydd's and deputies' chairing of Plenary is left out.

2,055 speeches and questions

6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
But if you write a law that says that you have to staff a particular ward at this level and those people don't exist, you are then getting into very difficult territory—
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
No, we haven't changed our position. I think writing a law that says 'You've got to staff in this way—'. If you haven't got the staff, you just can't meet the law. So, I just think you've got to be really practical about how this works, at a time when…
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
So, there are already two mandatory biannual calculations that have to happen in terms of staffing levels anyway, so I'm not sure if we need to layer on top of that.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
Well, to be honest, I'm more interested in the operational guidance, because I think that's the thing that makes a difference on the ground, and that is constantly under review. It's a live and dynamic document and it's consistently being tweaked. And I think…
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
And, gosh, they've paid a price for it.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
Whereas they have in England.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
In other ways. There we go.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
Everyone is this morning.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
So, what Mabon was saying is, 'Should we legislate for training?', and what we're saying is you don't need to legislate for training—we're doing all of these things without legislation. So, that's the relationship in terms of this particular conversation, I…
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
Well, we are spending £0.25 billion a year on training people for the NHS in Wales, so that's a significant sum. We've seen an increase in the numbers that we are training, especially in terms of nursing, and we have maintained the nurse bursary. So, we have…
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
Sorry.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
Does it work? Okay.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
One moment—
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
Well, hang on. Please don't put words into my mouth that I haven't said. I did not say the Act is not fit for purpose. I think that the Act works well in the limited scope that it was meant to do, and we've set out very clearly the empowerment of the…
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
I didn't say the Act's not fit for purpose.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
But also, I think we can get there in other ways.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
Look, I haven't got an appetite to be making changes to Acts. If you go down the legislative route, if you think about all of the issues that are confronting the NHS today, this would not be top of my list of priorities of things to do.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
I think there are other aspects that can be done through other mechanisms besides statutory discipline. And I think that's—. I think, if you think about the kind of operational guidance and things that we can tweak, we can change—you don't have to put all of…
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
I think what that wouldn't do for you is to give you the flexibility that you need to respond to different circumstances, but also, the key thing to remember is that, actually, the world has changed quite a lot since this Act was developed. And one of the key…
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
Well, we've got a whole area that works around that. I think putting those kinds of things in law would be unusual.
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
—if you'd like. So, I think part of the challenge around this is that it's all very well to write in law, 'This is what you have to do', but, actually, if those people don't exist—and let's remember that the World Health Organization has said that there is…
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
Well, I think, it's not—. I don't think it's failed, but I think there have been some issues about unintended consequences and things that I think we probably need to look at. I can go into the details of some of those things—
6 December 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016: post-legislative scrutiny: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales and Nurse Director of NHS Wales
I think, in parts, it's definitely been successful. I think a particular area that I think you can point to is empowering the voice of the nurse at the executive level. So, the fact that, within the Act, there's a designated person means that the nurse in…
5 December 2023Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Waiting Well: An update on progress
Thank you, Altaf. I'm always happy to bow to your superior knowledge in this field, but what I can tell you is that the evidence that we've gathered so far in relation to the people who've used this service find it to be extremely useful and they have a…
5 December 2023Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Waiting Well: An update on progress
Diolch yn fawr. Well, what I can tell you, as you said in your opening statement, is that the best thing to do is to try and get these treatments done as quickly as possible, but as you have seen, the demand is absolutely immense and increasing, and is likely…