What is the current number of vacancies in NHS Wales?
Health boards and trusts actively manage their workforce with regular recruitment when vacancies arise. Collection and publication of vacancy data alone does not provide a picture of the dynamic reality on the ground.
Nonetheless we are working with Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) and other partners to improve data collection across a range of workforce metrics. A task and finish group consisting of HEIW, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership and Welsh Government agreed an approach to routinely collect vacancy information, with the intention to produce a regular statistical statement on StatsWales starting from April 2020. However implementation was postponed as resources were directed to priority Covid-19 work. My officials are actively considering when this work should re-start in the light of other pressing priorities.
The number of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals working in the NHS in Wales are at record levels.