At the same time as agreeing a two year pay award in 2014 for NHS Wales staff employed on Agenda for Change (AfC) contracts, the Minister for Health and Social Services, Professor Mark Drakeford AM, announced his intention to set up an NHS Wales Workforce Review to consider a range of workforce and pay issues in the context of the Nuffield Trust Report A Decade of Austerity in Wales?1 The ministerial written statement is provided at Annex B.

A Review Panel, independent of Welsh Government, was established in April 2015. David Jenkins, Chair of the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, was asked to chair the Panel and Professor Ceri Phillips, Head of the College of Human and Health Sciences and Professor of Health Economics at Swansea Centre for Health Economics, Professor Stuart Cole, Emeritus Professor of Transport at the University of South Wales, Martin Mansfield, General Secretary of the Wales TUC and Dr. Clare Gerada, Partner in the Hurley Group London and former Chair of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners were asked to serve as Panel members. (Having initially agreed to join the Panel, Dr. Clare Gerada had to subsequently withdraw due to her other commitments.) The full panel composition is provided at Annex C.

The Minister invited the Review Panel to consider the following matters and to report no later than February 2016.

1. The identification of new models of service delivery which are at the forefront of the integration of health and social care together with an analysis of the barriers experienced by such models and associated ways of working.
2. The workforce of the future and the staff and skill mix the NHS needs to ensure people receive high-quality care as close to their homes as possible.
3. Areas of efficiency, taking into account the principles of prudent healthcare, to help address the long-term financial challenge between 2016-17 and 2025-26 as identified in the Nuffield Trust report A Decade of Austerity in Wales?.
4. The long-term strategic direction for pay and reward for people currently covered by the UK Agenda for Change contract terms and conditions and for people employed in executive and senior posts. This will include the affordability of future pay and rewards within the context of the Nuffield Trust report A Decade of Austerity in Wales?; and the approach to considering, determining and setting future pay and rewards.