Caroline Jones: Thank you for that answer, leader of the house, because I was coming on to telemedicine, which is fast becoming a solution for healthcare in rural areas and widely seen as a solution to the shortages that we have in primary care. Unfortunately, those same rural areas are poorly provisioned in both broadband and mobile reception. So, if we are to address health inequalities in rural parts of...
Caroline Jones: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Leader of the house, Wales is facing a huge demographic shift in the near future, with the number of over-65s set to rocket, and the number of those of working age set to plummet. This presents enormous challenges for public services, particularly health and social care. Increased use of digital technologies can help address these problems, but only if we have the...
Caroline Jones: Cabinet Secretary, the backlog of road repairs is having a detrimental effect on the people in my region, South Wales West. One of my constituents is unable to take his wheelchair-bound wife out because of the state of the pavements around their home. When he called the council, they simply said that he was at the bottom of a very long list of repairs. So, how does your Government plan to...
Caroline Jones: 7. Will the Leader of the House outline how the Welsh Government plans to improve support for victims of domestic abuse? OAQ51794
Caroline Jones: Will the Leader of the House outline the Welsh Government's plans to improve Wales's digital infrastructure?
Caroline Jones: Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. We in UKIP Wales welcome your announcement of £3 million in support of Wales's brightest and most talented pupils. It is important to nurture talent and identify who our brightest pupils are at the earliest possible stage. So, because this needs to be done earlier than at sixth-form level it is a good initiative for the Seren network to embark...
Caroline Jones: Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. Like many of the respondents to the consultation paper, I am generally supportive of the intent behind your White Paper. I fully support the intention to introduce a legal duty of candour that will extend to other parts of the health and social care system, the same codes of conduct that apply to doctors and nurses. This will also ensure that...
Caroline Jones: Leader of the house, the Stay Well in Wales survey highlighted that doctors and nurses are not the primary source of health information, probably due to the difficulty in getting an appointment with a GP or practice nurse. The situation is being made much worse by short-sighted decisions by local government. Bridgend council intend to cut bus subsidies, which put an end to services covering a...
Caroline Jones: I would like to thank the Welsh Conservatives for tabling this debate today and Angela for opening the debate and for her eloquent contribution. Unfortunately, mental health still does not get the attention it deserves within our NHS. I welcome the additional £20 million for the mental health ring-fenced budget, which raises the total to £649 million. However, this is still simply not...
Caroline Jones: I would like to place on record my thanks to the committee clerks and all those who gave evidence to our committee during the course of our inquiry, and to our dedicated Chair. It is a sad indictment of our society when you consider that around one in five of people in Wales are lonely. Over half of people aged over 25 live alone and research by Age UK found that many older people can go five...
Caroline Jones: Cabinet Secretary, smart meters can be a vital tool in changing behaviours, enabling us to put a price on that left-on light or to see how much it costs to leave a device on stand-by. However, older smart meters can tie customers into a single supplier as they are useless when switching to a new supplier, and customers often have to pay for a new smart meter to replace the dumb one. The UK...
Caroline Jones: Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary, and I would also like to place on record my thanks to all the dedicated staff for the way that they've handled pressures this winter. Spring is just around the corner, but our NHS remains in the depths of a winter crisis, with many operations being cancelled, and therefore we cannot move on. I should rephrase that, because the term 'winter...
Caroline Jones: —yes—is already produced in Bridgend, in my region. We should be building a high-tech cluster around Pencoed, and lower tax is the catalyst we need. First Minister, what discussions have you had with your colleague the finance Secretary about emulating Ireland and encouraging high-tech businesses like Intel and Apple to set up shop in Wales by offering them tax breaks once we are free...
Caroline Jones: Thank you, First Minister. My region is now one of the poorest regions in the UK. It has the lowest employment rate in Wales, high levels of economic inactivity, and some of the lowest gross disposable household income in the UK. After nearly 20 years of Labour's economic plans, things are going in the wrong direction. My region doesn't need economic tinkering, like the disastrous...
Caroline Jones: 1. Will the First Minister outline how the Welsh Government is tackling poverty in South Wales West? OAQ51777
Caroline Jones: The NHS have cut bed numbers by a staggering 45 per cent. In 1990 there were nearly 20,000 beds in the Welsh NHS. Today, there are just over 10,000. Community hospitals across the country have shut, wards have been closed or merged, and plans have been unveiled for further closures. We have also seen a lack of investment and planning in the social care sector, which has accelerated under...
Caroline Jones: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to give Suzy Davies and Dai Lloyd a minute of my time to speak in this debate. My debate is on the role of community hospitals in the twenty-first century. On Thursday 5 July this year, the NHS will be 70 years old. Those 70 years have seen tremendous advances in care: the eradication of smallpox and polio, the world’s first liver, heart and lung transplants...
Caroline Jones: That was quick. Sorry, I wasn't ready. [Interruption.] Oh, I'm ready, believe you me. [Laughter.] Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I want to make it clear at the outset that I'm not ideologically opposed to expanding the Assembly. Labour's great constitutional experiment, introducing different systems of devolution to the three devolved nations, shows that they didn’t have a clue how to deliver...
Caroline Jones: Will the Cabinet Secretary outline how the Welsh Government's economic policies are improving the prosperity of South Wales West?
Caroline Jones: Finally, thank you. Diolch, Dirprwy Llywydd. Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. Digital technology is transforming our health service. The use of information technology is vital to a modern NHS. We can’t go back to the days of paper records or a time when test results took weeks to arrive with our Royal Mail service. I welcome the introduction of the Welsh patient referral...
