Page 39 - Swansea Skills Report 2024

Current Skill Requirements
Health & Social Care jobs have seen a decline
since 2018 of around 14%, the drop seems to be
driven across many job roles but mostly
focussed on Care Workers, Nurses, Welfare and
Cleaners Yet job postings have seen a steady
increase in the same period, implying that this
sectors main barrier is recruitment and
retention.
Many roles are hard to fill with Nurses Care
workers and medical practitioner roles being
advertised up to 5 times before they are filled.
Swansea Bay University Health board Workforce
and OD Framework outlines strategic aims to:
• Support better health and wellbeing by
actively promoting and empowering people
to live well in resilient communities
• Deliver better care through excellent health
and care services achieving the outcomes
which matter most to people
Excellent staff are identified as one of the key
delivery enabling objectives,
However, SBUHB claim recruitment is a massive
challenge stating:
“There are acute shortages of both nursing and
medical staff, which affect not only the Health
Board’s ability to meet financial and
performance targets, but also impact on quality
and safety. In recent years, there have been
changes to the immigration rules applied to
doctors within the UK plus changes to training
and number of posts available. This has resulted
in a reduction of
overseas doctors wishing to come to the UK to
train/work; there has also been a significant
increase in the number of doctors requesting to
train less than fulltime. Both of these situations
have had a significant impact on the
sustainability of junior doctor rotas and delivery
of service. In addition, Speciality and special
grade doctors in hard to fill areas are turning
down posts and moving across to England as
higher salaries are being offered.”
Health & Social Care
“Consultants are a key part of the NHS
workforce and represent a significant
investment for the Health Board. They are
also a limited resource and the ability to
recruit may be affected by the number of
‘home-grown’ training grades coming
through the Welsh system to replace retiring
Consultant and fill newly established
Consultant posts”
The current number of GP practices across
the SBUHB footprint is 49, compared with 77
in early 2017. This reduction is as a result of
the Bridgend boundary change in addition to
several practice mergers over the past 24
months.
Ongoing recruitment and retention crisis of
GPs has led to rapid upskilling of the
alternative workforce in General Practice to
help meet the needs of our patient
populations
It is also recognised a national deficit in
General Practice Nurses will be apparent
within the coming years and retention of
more experienced GPNs is vital in order to
train the next generation
There is also an overreliance on “Bank /
agency workers within the Health Board.
In addition to the concerned raised by SBUHB
Social Care is also struggling to recruit with
Care and Care Home Workers, being the
most advertised positions in the sector
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