§ 170. Mr. Ieuan Wyn JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales what steps he has taken to ensure proper training and recruitment of speech therapists in each area health authority in Wales.
§ Mr. GristTraining in speech therapy is provided in Wales at the South Glamorgan institute of higher education and in England at a number of higher education institutions in the public sector. As with other courses of higher education, students are recruited on a national basis. The South Glamorgan institute trains students from all parts of Wales, but many Welsh students train in England.
The recruitment of speech therapists locally is essentially a matter for the district health authority concerned, but my Department does have a strategic role at the all-Wales level in ensuring as far as possible that the identified staffing requirements of the NHS in Wales are met. Speech therapists are among those groups which have been the subject of detailed scrutiny in the first round of the manpower resource planning exercise undertaken by the Health Service in Wales this year. As part of the exercise, initiated by the manpower steering group established by the Department in 1986, health authorities were requested to make projections of future manpower requirements, including demand and supply estimates, over the next decade. A report on the outcome of that first planning round is being finalised, following which consideration will be given to its findings to determine the need and scope for action at the all-Wales and district levels to forestall any projected manpower difficulties.