The Welsh Government has confirmed it will hold an emergency summit this month over the lack of jobs for newly qualified paramedics, after figures revealed 82 graduates but no posts for them to fill.
The admission came in a written answer from the Cabinet Minister for Health and Care, Mabon ap Gwynfor, who acknowledged there are no newly qualified paramedic roles available this year.
It is the latest turn in a crisis Swansea Bay News has been following since the spring, when paramedic students at Swansea University were told there were no NHS jobs for them in Wales — with some advised to look as far afield as Canada and Australia.
Swansea University is the main training centre for paramedics in the region. When Swansea Bay News reported on the crisis in the spring, around 61 of the 67 students due to qualify this summer were based at Swansea, with the remaining six at Wrexham University.
The minister was responding to a written question from Welsh Conservative Darren Millar, who asked how the government was working with the Welsh Ambulance Service to ensure newly qualified paramedics could be hired this year.
In his reply, Mr ap Gwynfor said there were 82 graduates and no available newly qualified paramedic posts within the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust.
He described the situation as a “temporary mismatch” between the number of graduates and the number of funded vacancies, driven by financial constraints and a redesign of ambulance services.
The minister also said the problem was not unique to Wales, pointing to a restriction in available paramedic posts across the UK.
Despite the absence of paramedic vacancies, the government said 62 of the 82 graduates had secured Emergency Medical Technician roles — lower-banded posts — within the ambulance service instead.
It added that 42 of the graduates had been allocated training courses in September and October, with a further 20 placed on a reserve list.
The government confirmed a stakeholder summit would be held in June to consider immediate steps to support graduates who have not yet found a post, and to look at longer-term ways of stopping the situation from happening again.
The shortage echoes a parallel crisis among student nurses, who weeks earlier warned they faced unemployment after 2,300 hours of unpaid training as Band 5 posts dried up — even as health boards in the region had spent years recruiting nurses from overseas.
Natasha Asghar, the Welsh Conservatives’ shadow health minister, welcomed the summit but said it offered little comfort to graduates who had expected a paramedic job to be waiting for them.
She said vague references to financial pressures and service redesign were “not good enough,” and called for a proper explanation of how the situation had arisen.
“We need a proper explanation of how we got to this extraordinary situation where we have newly qualified paramedics, who are much-needed in the service, but there aren’t suitable jobs for them,” she said.
She added that the situation was hard to justify at a time when efforts should be focused on cutting waiting times, ending corridor care in A&E units and improving patient care.
The government has said it is working with the ambulance service, Health Education and Improvement Wales, universities and other stakeholders to better align training with employment.
