We all want to see the NHS in Wales delivering high quality healthcare. To achieve this we need a well-resourced and high performing workforce. However, it is clear that recruitment and retention of frontline staff has become a major challenge facing the NHS in Wales.

We all know that NHS staff work tirelessly to meet the demands of patients for health care. But Doctors, in both primary and secondary care, are reporting increasing and unmanageable workloads.

A recent Survey by the British Medical Association found that thirty per cent of junior doctors in Wales said their workload was unsustainable and unmanageable. These pressures are reflected in the increase in stress related illnesses among NHS staff.

Recruiting staff to ease these pressures has proved a problem.

Some seventeen per cent of all junior doctors positions are unfilled in Wales. This equates to a shortage of three hundred and thirty one junior doctors. In September last year, one thousand two hundred and forty nursing positions were unfilled.

The highest number of vacancies was in the Aneurin Bevan Health Board area.

Two hundred and sixty nursing positions were unfilled.

This failure to recruit has had serious financial consequences. More than sixty million pounds has been spent on agency nursing staff in the last five years.

Although it is vital that gaps in nursing coverage should be plugged this is not sustainable in the long term.

Evidence exists that the problem of staff shortages is likely to grow as increasing numbers of doctors are planning or have considered early retirement.

An ageing workforce combined with difficulty in recruiting trainees demonstrates the need to address these challenges as a matter of urgency.

We need a clear strategy from the Welsh Government for future workforce planning and we must provide the skills to adapt to modern healthcare needs.

Traditional models of care are becoming increasingly unsuitable for today’s health care needs.

We must ensure the skills of the existing workforce are updated continuously to deliver real change. We must shift the emphasis in the training and education budget to fund continuing professional development.

And we need effective Public Health initiatives to relieve the burden on NHS finances and release money for frontline core services.

This is vital if we are to create the well-resourced and high performing NHS that the people of Wales need and deserve.