NHS winter pressures: what is being done?

Local TV

Eluned Morgan gets quizzed over record long NHS waiting times, and opposition members want assurances that we’ll see change before added winter pressures.

Transcript

00:00With the winter comes added pressures for the NHS. It's inevitable and by and large

00:06unavoidable that there will be additional problems, but Welsh Tory leader Andrew R.T.

00:11Davies is concerned that the NHS in Wales is already facing problems, so wants assurances

00:16from the First Minister that everything that can be done is being done.

00:20The figures are going in the wrong direction, First Minister. We're knocking on the door

00:24of deepest winter. Give some hope to our health workers and give some hope to the patients

00:29of Wales.

00:30Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we have seen the longest waiters coming down, and I can tell you in

00:34relation to the 50-day challenge, we're asking the teams to target the people who've been

00:40in hospital for the longest 25% of the time, so that's 350 people against the 1,500 or

00:48so in terms of delayed discharges. So there's your figures, and obviously we are holding

00:54the health authorities to account in relation to those kind of targets.

01:01Staffing is one of the major concerns for the NHS in Wales, and there are accusations

01:05that the Welsh Labour government are shooting themselves in the foot by cutting the number

01:09of nursing university places in Wales. But Eluned Morgan says that's simply not the case.

01:15But in what can only be described as a backward step, Welsh government has cut places on all

01:22nursing undergraduate courses for the first time in a decade.

01:26When it comes to nurse bursary, I think it is important to recognise that we have as

01:33many training places this year as were filled last year. So if you think about how many

01:41came out last year, we're putting the same number in. So you can have very ambitious

01:48targets. If you can't fill the number of people going in because they're not applying for

01:52it, then obviously that becomes a problem. So we're providing as many as were filled

01:58last year.

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