Workforce review recommends creating nursing bank in Wales

A review of the NHS workforce in Wales has recommended setting up a Welsh nursing bank, cutting down on agency staff and ensuring minimum staff sickness levels. It recommends Agenda for Change payscales, which 78,000 staff are on, should be maintained.

The review by Aneurin Bevan University Health Board chair David Jenkins OBE recommends: ‘The long-term strategic direction for pay in the NHS must be to keep pace with wage growth in the wider economy if the NHS is to avoid serious recruitment and retention difficulties, a worsening of staff morale and a decline in levels of competency.’

The review follows last year’s Nuffield Trust report which identified a potential £2.5 billion health funding gap in Wales by 2025/26.

Wales has had a pay restraint policy since 2011/12, yet NHS pay accounts for almost two thirds of its hospital costs.

Since the Nuffield report, the Welsh Government has allocated an additional £200 million each year to health.

Other review recommendations for Wales include better integration of health and social care, reducing time taken to fill vacancies, developing a stronger pool of advanced nurse practitioners and patients receiving high-quality care as close to their homes.

Responding to the review, RCN Wales director Tina Donnelly said: 'We were pleased to see the importance of UK-wide terms and conditions for healthcare staff working in the NHS and the value of equal pay.’

She added: ‘It is essential that any integration of services strengthens services rather than fragment them.’

Read the full review.