Hundreds struck off Welsh NHS as waiting lists continue to balloon

Hundreds of NHS staff have been sacked in the last five years at a time when treatment waiting lists are now at a record high, leading to concerns over the money wasted on training people who are not appropriate for posts within the Welsh health service.

Freedom of Information requests by the Welsh Conservatives to health boards found that, since 2017, between 740 and 1,017 NHS workers have been dismissed from working in the health service.

Commenting, Welsh Conservatives and Shadow Health Minister Russell George MS said:

“It is vital that the people of Wales receive the best healthcare available to them and malpractice is dealt with properly, but I am concerned with just how high these figures are, especially when there will have been significant cost on hiring, training, and firing these people – all wasted.

“With a record backlog where 1-in-4 patients are waiting over a year and 60,000 people waiting more than two years, we need as many staff available to make progress on this and end the cost-of-pain crisis.

“People will be asking why the numbers are so large, whether the standards we set on new entrants are high enough, and why they are slipping to the extent that we have seen hundreds of dismissals across the last five years.

“The Labour-run NHS has thousands of staffing vacancies and this will only be making things worse. The Labour Government need to get a grip on the NHS and stop breaking all the wrong records.”

255 of these were at North Wales’ Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board (HB), 244 at Cardiff & Vale HB, and 10 in Powys HB.

Due to data protection rules, other health boards provided data in ways where figures are only presentable as a range.

There were 159-229 dismissals in Dyfed’s Hywel Dda HB, 41-138 in Cwm Taf Morgannwg HB, 18-76 in Gwent’s Aneurin Bevan HB, and 13-65 at Swansea Bay HB.