NHS Confederation / Wikimedia Commons
The former Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has been appointed as cabinet secretary for health and social care for Wales.
Drakeford, who was previously health and social care minister between 2013 and 2016, resigned as first minister in March 2024.
In a statement published on 7 August 2024 by Eluned Morgan, who has been appointed as the new first minister of Wales, she said she had asked Drakeford to join the ministerial team “on an interim basis”.
He was replaced as first minister by Vaughan Gething, who also held the role of health and social care minister from 2016 until 2021.
Drakeford’s return to healthcare follows Morgan’s appointment as first minister of Wales earlier in August 2024, following Gething’s resignation from the post.
Morgan was health and social care minister from May 2021 until her appointment.
Drakeford has also been a professor of social policy and applied social sciences at Cardiff University and also taught at Swansea University.
Between 2000 and 2010, he worked as the cabinet’s health and social policy adviser at the Welsh government, before being elected to the Welsh Assembly as member for Cardiff West in May 2011.
Drakeford chaired the Welsh Assembly’s Health and Social Care Committee from July 2011 until March 2013.
He held the roles of cabinet secretary for finance and local government from May 2016 and cabinet secretary for finance from November 2017. He was then appointed as first minister of Wales in December 2018.
Elen Jones, director for Wales at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, commented: “I would like to congratulate Mark Drakeford on his appointment. In his previous roles as first minister and his first period as minister for health and social services, Mark was a firm supporter of pharmacy and we were pleased to have a constructive relationship with him.
“During this time, he was instrumental in advancing the clinical role of the profession in Wales; particularly in the development of cluster pharmacist roles and enabling community pharmacists to take the lead on the treatment of common ailments.”
