The report found:
- While there are positive developments in some key areas such as sickness absence and agency staff use, the NHS continues to face significant workforce challenges;
- The national approach to tackling the workforce challenges has become overly complex and is hampered by the lack of a national workforce plan and some uncertainty over system leadership arrangements; and
- NHS Workforce planning is made more difficult by a lack of clarity on future service models, gaps in data and workforce planning expertise and limitations on the number of training places that can be commissioned.
RCPCH Officer for Wales, Dr Nick Wilkinson, said:
We welcome this report from Audit Wales, whose findings resonate with what we're hearing from the child health workforce in Wales. Our members and the rest of the child health workforce are working immensely hard, but without further support the workforce will continue to struggle to address lengthy waits, mitigate the impact of mounting inequalities and care for those children and young people with currently unmet needs.
We know unhealthy children are more likely to grow into unhealthy adults and without investment in services for children this could have a profound impact on adult services later down the line. We support Audit Wales’s findings and add that unless there’s a specific focus on the workforce supporting children, we may never be able to get a handle on the unprecedented levels of need currently facing the NHS.
We hope the Welsh Government acknowledge Audit Wales’s findings and work with us to deliver a national long term workforce plan, informed by clinicians and data modelling.