Vaughan Gething MS, Minister for Health and Social Services
I am pleased to be able to inform Members of the Senedd that today ‘A Healthier Wales: Our Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care’ has been jointly launched by Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) and Social Care Wales (SCW). I am providing a copy of the Strategy with this written statement.
HEIW and SCW were commissioned to jointly lead the development of a workforce strategy for health and social care in partnership with NHS Wales, Local Government, the voluntary and independent sectors as well as regulators, professional bodies and education providers. HEIW and SCW completed a diagnostic and engagement phase, which was then followed by widespread engagement through a number of channels focussed on seven emerging themes and a suite of potential actions.
The Strategy signals our clear long term vision for the health and care workforce as a key driver to make a reality of our first national strategic plan for health and social care A Healthier Wales. It provides a high level strategic framework, which signals our ambition to value and support our workforce, engaging and motivating them through compassionate leadership embedded throughout our system, and empowering them to develop their skills and agility to respond quickly to future challenge and opportunities. This is the way for us to deliver a transformed health and care system which is sustainable, focussed on wellbeing, care closer to home and will deliver for our future generations. The Strategy will, over time, be underpinned by a series of delivery plans to provide detail about the focussed actions needed to deliver our vision for the workforce of the future.
It is right for us to maintain our focus on this long term ambition and its core principles of compassionate leadership and a strong focus on health and wellbeing even as we tackle the more immediate and extraordinary challenges we face over the winter period. We have agreed that HEIW and SCW will set out the priorities for the next six months in a delivery plan designed to support the Winter Protection Plan and the wider health and social care system as we move into the next phase of our Covid response and to work at speed to address these priorities.