Hutt: Hopeful

The Welsh Assembly Government has said it is making progress in closing NHS recruitment gaps.

Cardiff health minister Jane Hutt said on Wednesday that 70 senior doctors have been employed in the principality since the start of the year.

The extra hospital consultants are the result of a campaign to recruit more medical professionals into the NHS, some of whom had previously left, she said.

"This campaign, along with the attractive revised medical consultants contract, agreed last December, have helped in significantly increasing the number of consultants working in the NHS," Hutt claimed.

"The new contract offers consultants improved pay, flexible-working conditions and recognition for working on-call."

The minister also boasted that staffing levels throughout the NHS in Wales are improving, as increased funding and improved working conditions come on stream.

Wales has suffered disproportionately to other NHS areas in attracting staff, with nursing and dentistry providing particular problems.

But Hutt pointed to new statistics to show the situation is now improving.

"As well as a great rise in consultants, figures published last month for staff in post in September 2003 show an increase in qualified nursing, midwifery and health visitors by 748 to 19,514," she said.

Vacancies

She added that figures showing the number of vacancies do not give the full picture of staffing levels.

"There has been a decrease in the number of vacancies for medical and dental staff, from 200 to 186 according to new figures out today," Hutt said.

"However, there has been a 23 per cent increase in the number of vacancies in other NHS posts, but it must be remembered that we are always increasing the number of posts available whilst continuing to fill them. Therefore, vacancy levels can reflect rising staff numbers not, as is always assumed falling numbers of staff.

"The figures, for September 2003, show that directly employed NHS staff have increased by 2,500 to 62,644 and we are well on our way to reaching our target of 6,000 more nurses and 700 more hospital consultants and general practitioners by 2010. 

"Between 2002 and 2003 the number of nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff have increased by 1,191 to 26,697. This is a significant increase, which is a real reflection of the extra investment that has gone into recruiting and training NHS staff."

But Welsh Conservative health spokesman Jonathan Morgan claimed that 312,129 people, more than the population of capital city Cardiff, are on an NHS waiting list.

He said the Assembly Government's strategy of offering treatment elsewhere was flawed.

"I am very concerned that Jane Hutt's political advisers have found a way to trick patients and the public into thinking there has been progress with a second offer of treatment by merely offering a form of treatment that would be totally impossibly for a patient to accept," Morgan said.

"Many patients who have been waiting more than 18 months for treatment are very often unable to travel - second offers of treatment often happen in England meaning both the patient and relatives must travel considerable distances, sometimes for many months.

"I would like to know why people are declining offers of treatment and what it is about their offer that means they don't want it."