Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Welsh Ministers have duties under the Learning and Skills Act 2000 to secure the provision of a range of facilities for education and training for young people aged 16‒25 and they have powers to fund FE establishments and young people. Under our current policy for securing specialist provision for young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, most young people that apply to Welsh Government for support are able to have their identified needs met through a programme of study delivered over a two year period. Our policy provides flexibility in considering a longer duration if appropriate. Where the education and training needs of a young person requires a programme of study longer than two years, which is supported by the outcome of the Careers Wales assessment process, then an appropriate decision will be made by the Welsh Government, which could result in a specialist placement being secured based on a three year programme of study.

We did not receive an application from local authorities for mobility scooter training when applications were submitted last financial year.  For this reason no funding has been allocated in 2019/20.  We have in the past made funding available to local authorities where they have identified the need for this training in their area and have submitted bids to that effect. Officials will be assessing bids for the 2020/21 funding round for road safety grants shortly and any requests for mobility scooter training that are received will be assessed against the published grant criteria.

There are no current plans to update the ‘Planning a Muslim Burial’ guidance or extend it to include the funeral requirements of other faith and belief groups. 

However, the introduction of a Medical Examiner Service provides an opportunity to review the operation of the current arrangements to ensure, where appropriate, the needs of faith communities for prompt funerals will be met. I will ask my officials to work with the WLGA, who co-produced this guidance, to explore any opportunities to do so with the Faith Communities Forum.

There are no current plans to update the ‘Planning a Muslim Burial’ guidance or extend it to include the funeral requirements of other faith and belief groups. 

However, the introduction of a Medical Examiner Service provides an opportunity to review the operation of the current arrangements to ensure, where appropriate, the needs of faith communities for prompt funerals will be met. I will ask my officials to work with the WLGA, who co-produced this guidance, to explore any opportunities to do so with the Faith Communities Forum.

As a responsible nation, we are committed to dealing effectively with our non-recyclable waste, in a way which prevents it from polluting our land and seas, or becoming a problem elsewhere.

The incineration of residual waste, to extract the maximum benefit and dispose of it safely and to the highest environmental standards, is important for managing this material.  It is however, a transitionary step, as the long-term solution is to move away from materials that cannot be recycled. 

As part of our consultation on our new Circular Economy Strategy, Beyond Recycling, we want to engage as widely as possible on the next steps needed to become a zero waste, net zero carbon nation by 2050..  This includes how we  manage and continue to reduce our residual waste in Wales.

It is the responsibility of Health Boards to plan and balance the needs of both planned and unscheduled care patients to ensure the safe delivery of services. Whilst Health Boards reduce the number of elective inpatients treated during the beginning of January to allow beds to be available for the expected increase in unscheduled care patients, they do continue to see outpatients and carry out day surgery during this time.

The medical examiner service in Wales, as in England, will be implemented in two stages - an interim stage, which fulfils the role of a pilot, followed by the statutory stage under which the relevant provisions of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 will come into effect.

The medical examiner service in Wales will be implemented on an all Wales basis, by NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership working with Local Health Boards. To date a lead medical examiner and medical examiner officer has been appointed and the recruitment of medical examiners (MEs) and medical examiner officers (MEOs) has started. Discussions are also underway to set up medical examiner offices in LHBs.

The implementation of the interim phase started in January and the roll out of the scrutiny of deaths will focus initially on the deaths that occur in acute hospitals. It is intended that by October 2020 all deaths in acute hospitals will be scrutinised by either MEs or MEOs. The further roll out to those deaths that occur outside acute hospital settings will start at the end of 2020 and will be complete by the commencement of the statutory stage, which is anticipated to be on 1 April 2021.

Our Train Work Live campaign, launched in 2016, has been successful in increasing the number of GPs in training.

In the most recent full recruitment round, 2019, we filled 186 GP training places, vastly surpassing the 136 baseline allocation. Each training scheme across Wales, as a minimum, has filled its baseline allocation.

As part of the campaign two incentive schemes are in operation. GP trainees who take up a training place in a specified hard to recruit area are eligible for a payment of up to £20,000. The incentive commenced in 2017 within selected training schemes. A second incentive of a one-off payment of approximately £2,000 to cover exam costs, is also in place for all GP trainees.

With GP training in Wales currently undergoing a period of significant expansion, last year I announced an increase in the baseline recruitment target from 136 to 160 places, following a review of GP training by Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW). HEIW have also developed a business case to increase the number of GP training places even further from 2021 which is currently being considered.

Our Train Work Live campaign is supporting local recruitment through marketing Wales via its digital, social media and PR channels, both within the UK and overseas, promoting training and working as a GP along with the offer of excellent lifestyle choices.

The campaign has targeted specific countries to promote Wales as a great place to train, work and live. For example India has been an important destination for the Welsh Government’s efforts to attract more doctors from outside Wales and has had the greatest overseas interaction with the digital and social media campaign. 

In 2019 we launched GP Wales, a single digital platform where individuals can locate jobs in general practice and primary care in Wales.  This platform has simplified the search for GP vacancies in Wales with detailed information available not only on the vacancies advertised but the GP practices themselves and is easily accessible from anywhere. 

GP contracts in Wales are currently reviewed on an annual basis.  We recognise that last year’s agreement for 2019-20 saw significant changes across a range of areas; including new access standards, a partnership premium and a new Quality Improvement and Assurance Framework (QAIF), which need to bed in.  The changes resulted in substantial investment into general practice, ensuring that GPs in Wales are better funded per patient than counterparts in England.

As primary care clusters continue to develop and we look for greater alignment between primary care, we will consider how the contracts can be further reformed to meet the needs of patients across Wales.

The Scoping Survey of Bereavement Services in Wales was published on 13 December 2019 and is available at: https://gov.wales/scoping-survey-bereavement-services.

I will be issuing a Written Statement setting out the Welsh Government’s response to the bereavement scoping survey next month.

We are continuing to work closely with both statutory and third sector partners to deliver on our ambition to become the world’s first ‘Compassionate Country’. 

The Byw Nawr Steering Group has been repurposed and is responsible for driving the compassionate country approach in Wales. The Steering Group has developed a draft charter and work is ongoing to secure Wales-wide support for its implementation. We will be publishing the compassionate country charter in the Spring.

However, making Wales a compassionate country is much more than implementing a charter. It’s about embedding a compassionate approach in all our work places, our schools, our places of worship, our prisons and above all supporting our communities to become more resilient to be able to cope with the challenges that life brings.

Progress to date includes but is not limited to the following:

1. Working with Compassionate Communities UK to provide primary care clusters in Wales with the tools they need to roll out for their population a compassionate community approach to end of life care;
2. Using transformation monies to enhance the well-being resource in a number of primary care clusters (through social prescribing) to connect people to community well-being opportunities. Examples include health connection groups such as talking cafes and self-management programmes; and,
3. Embedding the compassionate country approach within the loneliness and isolation and older people strategies.