Eluned Morgan, Minister for Health and Social Services
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.