Senedd 2026 | The road to recovery: RCP manifesto launch

September always brings a sense of renewal and refocus, so it was a great month to launch our manifesto for Senedd 2026 on the same day that the RCP visited Wrexham Maelor Hospital.

Our calls for Senedd 2026

Our manifesto sets out clear calls for the next government in Wales: a clinically led, long-term workforce plan for health and social care, more action on prevention and the things that make us ill in the first place, and robust social care solutions. The publication of this manifesto marks the culmination of months of dialogue with doctors from across Wales, and I want to say a big thank you to everyone who participated in our discussions and contributed ideas.

Here is more detail on the three priorities outlined in our manifesto.

Address the NHS workforce crises

We were keen to develop solutions, and perhaps unsurprisingly our first priority for the next Welsh government is to develop a clinically led, long-term NHS workforce plan for health and social care. Workforce planning needs to come together, as without this, it will continue to be developed in piecemeal way. We want this plan to set out a new approach to recruitment and retention and consider the impact of changing working patterns, tackle rural recruitment issues and address wider issues with infrastructure, technology and working environments. It’s also vital that it focuses on the challenges facing our early career doctors, like growing competition ratios and insufficient training posts.

Put prevention first and tackle health inequalities

We also know that if we’re going to get to grips with demand for NHS services in Wales, we need to tackle the deepening poverty and decline in living standards in Wales, which is increasing sickness and ill health. It’s astonishing that nearly a quarter of households and 31% of children are thought to live in poverty. Government departments must act together to alleviate poverty and ill health. Our second priority for the next government in Wales is for a cross-government action plan to tackle health inequalities in Wales. This will require action from housing, early years, education, transport, community and the environment – it’s everyone’s business to tackle health inequalities in Wales. We’ve also called for action to improve air quality, reduce obesity and tackle harms from smoking and alcohol. 

Invest in social care 

The recent GMC workplace experiences report found that 69% of doctors in Wales identified patient flow or bed pressures as a barrier to good patient care – this compares with a UK average of 56%, indicating that while this is an issue across the UK it is considerably worse in Wales. These pressures often stem from delays in transferring patients to their home from hospital and contribute to corridor care. 

In 2024, the average delay for patients in Wales to leave hospital once fit to leave was 5 weeks. Delays are mainly due to patients waiting for assessments, a care home placement or suitable home care. This is why our third priority for the Welsh government is to value and invest in social care – to improve patient flow through the hospital and speed up discharge

Wales adopts new terminology for physician assistants (PAs)

Following our letter to the Wales CMO Professor Isabel Oliver, we were reassured by the announcement from the cabinet secretary for health Jeremy Miles that Wales has accepted in principle the recommendations set out in the Leng review, and an implementation group is being set up in Wales. The CMO has written to employers in Wales to encourage the early adoption of the updated terminology ‘physician assistants’ and ‘physician assistants in anaesthesia’. We fully support the change in name to address concerns raised by patients and families that they are not clear about who they are seeing. We very much hope that the two professions can now move forward together, committed to safe teamwork and patient-focused care. Healthcare systems are highly complex, and I do hope we learn that change is better undertaken in a stepwise way with careful evaluation, as short cuts rarely deliver.

Swansea University’s Welsh learner speaker support scheme

If you were inspired by Dr Olwen Williams’ blog last month about Welsh speaking in healthcare delivery, do look at Swansea University’s Welsh Learner Speaking Support Scheme for Health Professionals. If you are a fluent Welsh speaker or a Welsh learner and would like to be matched in a peer support pair, register your interest. Please contact r.o.morgan@swansea.ac.uk if you have any questions.