Further to the Minister's comments in Plenary on 12 October 2021, what immediate steps are Health Education and Improvement Wales taking to fill staff vacancies within the mental health service?
The workforce plan being developed by Health Education and Improvement Wales and Social Care Wales is longer-term and aims to ensure a future, sustainable mental health workforce.
In the shorter term, immediate steps have been taken to ensure that a wider range of staff have the skills to address mental health issues through the provision of appropriate training. HEIW has also responded to an immediate identified need for an additional 2 Child Psychotherapists in Wales (1 North and 1 South) by arranging the commissioning of training. HEIW has also arranged the immediate increase of commissioning 2 additional Clinical Psychology places this year (these have now been recruited to commence next year). There are now 34 commissioned Clinical Psychology places for 2021-22.
Alongside this work, health boards have also been allocated service improvement funding to support the priority areas within the Together for Mental Health Delivery Plan 2019-2022. This funding is also being used to fill current staff vacancies in mental health services.