Eluned Morgan – 2023 Statement on Expansion in Training Places for the Health Professional Workforce in Wales
The statement made by Eluned Morgan, the Welsh Minister for Health and Social Services, on 18 January 2023.
Despite the challenges we face today, we continue to invest in the education and training of healthcare professionals in Wales. There is great demand on our NHS in Wales and the continued necessity to increase the training numbers and funding for essential health professionals in 2023/24. This is why, for the ninth consecutive year, funding to support health professional education and training in Wales will increase.
£281.98m will be invested in 2023/24; this equates to a 8% increase from 2022/23 which is an extra £1.7m for education and training programmes for healthcare professionals in Wales; £7.14m extra for medical training places, an extra £1.68m to support core GP training numbers and a net increase of £3.41m for pharmacy training across Wales. This will continue to be a record level of funding to support the highest ever number of training opportunities in Wales.
A well-trained NHS workforce with the right skills is essential to providing a sustainable high-quality care to people across Wales and improving standards in our health service.
I am proud of this government’s record on investing in education and training to support and sustain the health workforce across Wales. The NHS has more people working in it than at any time in its history, all aimed at prevention and care for members of society, across every community in Wales.
The Welsh Government remains committed to providing the NHS with the workforce it needs and these additional training places will increase the capacity of the workforce to help the NHS respond to the challenges facing it in the future.
Over the past five years nurse training places have increased by 41.3% and midwives have increased by 41.8%. Tables showing the increase in health professional and medical training places for 2023/24 can be found at Annex A.
Annex A
NHS Wales Education Commissioning and Training Plan for 2023/24
The following tables show the increase in health professional and medical training places for 2023/24.
| Speciality | From | To | % Increase |
| Adult Nursing | 1651 | 1892 | 14.6% |
| Mental Health Nursing | 410 | 530 | 29.2% |
| Child | 175 | 192 | 9.7% |
| Midwifery | 185 | 190 | 2.7% |
| Dietetics | 66 | 82 | 24.2% |
| Occupational Therapy | 179 | 197 | 10% |
| Physiotherapy | 174 | 180 | 3.4% |
| PhD Clinical Psychology | 36 | 40 | 11.1% |
| Paramedics | 116 | 120 | 3.4% |
| Operating Department practitioners | 49 | 62 | 26.5% |
| Scientist Training Programme | 39 | 53 | 36% |
| Higher Specialist Training | 8 | 10 | 25% |
| Cardiac Physiology | 23 | 24 | 4.3% |
| Audiology | 11 | 12 | 9% |
| Respiratory & Sleep Science | 8 | 14 | 75% |
| Neurophysiology | 3 | 4 | 33% |
| Life Sciences (Bio Medical Sciences) | 24 | 26 | 8.3% |
| Clinical Engineering | 6 | 8 | 33% |
| Pre-registration Pharmacy Technicians | 83 | 100 | 20.5% |
| Pharmacy Technicians | 30 | 50 | 66.7% |
| Secondary Care/Speciality Training | 89 | 92 | 3.4% |
| Foundation training | 60 | 69 | 15% |
| Physician Associates | 52 | 57 | 9.6% |
| Urgent and Emergency Care | |
| Intensive Care Medicine | Increase of 3 higher Training Programme posts (fifth successive year of increases). |
| Higher Emergency Medicine | To increase by 4 higher posts for 2023, 4 posts for 2024 and 2 posts for 2025. The increases for 2024 and 2025 are required to ensure the pipeline via ACCS EM established in previous workforce plans is aligned to the higher programme. |
| ACCS Emergency Medicine | To increase by 4 posts for 2023 (2 in North Wales and 2 in South Wales) and by 2 posts for 2024 (South Wales). |
| Geriatric Medicine | To increase by 5 posts each year for 3 years commencing in 2023. These recommendations will be reviewed on an annual basis and increased if high recruitment levels into the programme are sustained. |
| Internal Medicine | To increase by 12 posts for 2023 to maintain the pipeline created following expansion in 2021 and 2022. |
| Foundation | To increase the number of Foundation Year 1 posts by 39 and Foundation Year 2 posts by 30 for August 2023 as detailed in the Foundation Expansion Business Case. |
| Cancer Care | |
| Clinical Oncology | Increase by 4 additional Higher Training posts implementing year 3 of the proposal to expand by 4 posts per year for 5 years. |
| Medical Oncology | Increase by 3 additional Higher Training posts implementing year 3 of the proposal to expand by 3 posts per year for 5 years. |
| Palliative Medicine | To increase Palliative Medicine training by a further 2 posts for August 2023 as recommended in the 22/23 plan. |
| Planned Care | |
| General Surgery | Increase by 7 higher posts for 2023. |
| Trauma & Orthopaedics | To increase by 5 posts in 2023 and then by a further 5 in 2024 and in 2025 (to be reviewed and dependent upon training capacity). |
| Higher Anaesthetics | Increase of 6 Higher Anaesthetics posts. |
| Dermatology | To increase by 3 posts in 2023 and by 3 posts in 2024. |
| Rheumatology | To increase by 2 posts for 2023 as recommended in the 22/23 plan. |
| Neurology | To increase by 3 posts for 2023. |
| Diabetes & Endocrinology | To increase by 1 post in 2023 and a further post in 2024. |
| Diagnostic specialties & Health promotion/prevention | |
| Medical Microbiology/ Infectious Diseases | Increase of 3 Medical Microbiology/Infectious Diseases posts implementing year 4 of a plan to increase posts every year for 5 years. |
| Clinical Radiology | To support the recommended expansion as required to appoint 20 trainees for the 2023 intake into the South Wales programme. |
| Clinical Neurophysiology | To increase by 1 post in 2023 and then by a further post in 2024. |
| Public Health Medicine | To increase by 3 posts as recommended in the 22/23 plan. |
| Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (CPT) | To increase by 1 post in 2023. |
| Mental Health | |
| Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
|
No increase to the higher programme for 2023 but to monitor demand and act accordingly.
To pilot 2 new innovative ST1 run through posts for 2023. |
| Old age psychiatry
|
To increase by 2 posts for 2023 and a further 2 for 2024 as recommended in the 22/23 plan. |
| General Adult Psychiatry | To increase by 2 posts in North Wales in 2023. Increases will be recommended for South Wales in the 24/25 plan if current vacancies are filled. |
| Forensic Psychiatry
|
To increase by 1 post for 2023 to enable the creation of a North Wales programme. |
| Core psychiatry
|
To increase by 8 posts in 2023 and a further 8 posts in 2024 to maintain the pipeline created through the initial expansion in the 22/23 plan. |
