A Welsh government spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring our investment in NHS education and training is supported by meaningful employment opportunities.<\/p>\n
“We are working closely with the WAST, HEIW and universities to address these challenges and support graduates.”<\/p>\n
A Welsh Labour spokesperson said they were “committed to ensuring the NHS in Wales has the staff it needs now and in the future” through a long-term workforce plan.<\/p>\n
A Plaid Cymru spokesperson said that students and the NHS were being “failed” by the Welsh government, adding it had outlined plans to “create a new comprehensive national workforce strategy that is desperately needed”.<\/p>\n
Reform UK’s James Evans said the decision “makes a mockery” of Welsh taxpayers.<\/p>\n
“Not only will the Welsh Ambulance Service continue to be understaffed and likely continue to miss key life-saving response time targets, but taxpayers are footing the bill,” he said.<\/p>\n
Jane Dodds, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, said the decision was “a staggering waste of both talent and taxpayers’ money”, which made no sense “at a time when ambulance response times are still far too long and patients are waiting in pain”.<\/p>\n
A Welsh Conservative spokesperson said it was “a clear failure of workforce planning by the Welsh Labour government” and it was “completely unacceptable that paramedic students are being left without job opportunities in Wales”.<\/p>\n
Wales Green Party’s Ian Chandler said: “The Welsh Ambulance Service recruitment freeze is a cut in all but name – when staff leave, they won’t be replaced. That means slower response times and greater risk to patients.<\/p>\n
“It’s a clear failure of planning by the Labour government. Wales Green Party will ensure workforce plans reflect the needs of the health service and are properly resourced.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Welsh government spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring our investment in NHS education and training is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-515322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}