Following the Assembly elections on May 5, First Minister Carwyn Jones announced a new cabinet for the Welsh Government which includes a change to the leadership on health and social care.
- Former Deputy Health Minister, Vaughan Gething (pictured below), becomes Minister for Health, Well-being and Sport.
- Rebecca Evans becomes Minister for Social Services and Public Health.
Care Forum Wales has written to Vaughan Gething and Rebecca Evans setting out what we see as the priorities for our members. You can login as a CFW member to read the letter.
Vaughan Gething Letter May 2016 (PDF).
Read CFW’s priorities – our letter to the new health minister Vaughan Gething
ï‚· We believe that nursing homes, residential care homes and domiciliary care agencies contribute enormously to the wellbeing of the people of Wales and in particular those they care for, their friends and families and those they employ. We are looking at significant changes to the sector as the Regulation and Inspection Act is implemented and all providers are required to re-register. We are concerned to ensure that process works as smoothly as possible for the benefit of those currently using care and support services. In particular we would want to ensure that the perfect does not become the enemy of the good and that aspirations for provision in the future do not lead to a crisis in provision in the here and now. There are already unexpected registration issues around physical standards in care homes that are currently preventing investment in the sector, which we would seek to resolve as soon as possible. We believe all standards should be proportionate and appropriate to the requirements of the individuals accessing services and the type of care and support being offered.
ï‚· We also welcome moves to professionalise the workforce, but believe it is important that changes are staged in an appropriate way and that access to appropriate qualifications, in particular for those over the age of 25 (the vast majority of employees entering the sector), is improved to enable an up-skilling of the workforce to meet professional expectations. We also believe investment is necessary to ensure sufficient supply of high quality managers in the sector.
ï‚· It is vital going forward that commissioning and inspection and regulation of the sector are better aligned to ensure that providers are clear what is being commissioned from them at what price and that is the same as what is being inspected. In the past this has not always been the case, and much still remains to be done.
ï‚· We note the Progressive Agreement between Welsh Labour and Kirsty Williams seeks to ensure “There are more nurses, in more settings, through an extended nurse staffing levels law”. You will be well aware that there is a shortage of nurses across the UK and that shortage is even more acute in the care home sector than in the NHS itself. New laws will not create new nurses overnight. However, we believe that the regulators’ and commissioners’ current assumptions in Wales – which insist, for example, that only nurses should administer medications in nursing homes – should urgently be reviewed. We urge Welsh Government to take the lead on a national basis, by publishing new guidance to confirm that appropriately trained and supervised Care Practitioners may undertake these tasks as they do in residential homes. This would free up nurses to focus on more skilled clinical work.
ï‚· We would also seek to discuss how we could jointly deal with the issue of unregulated agencies currently exploiting the shortage of staff in care homes (and in the NHS) which place more pressure on costs and the system and in some cases leading to unsafe and even dangerous practices.
ï‚· Finally, your predecessor, Mark Drakeford, had instigated a series of roundtable events to examine the impact of ongoing increases of the National Minimum Wage on the sector. While we support social care staff being better rewarded for undertaking their vital role the increases in the minimum wage over the past year have placed significant demands on the sector and on our Health and Local Government commissioners, with the vast majority of care in Wales being publicly funded. We are extremely concerned about the viability of the sector going forward, with further increases in minimum pay levels expected to be announced by the Westminster Government.