Angela Burns: The Welsh Conservatives will support today’s motion to note the interim report by the parliamentary review of health and social care. The interim report makes for thought-provoking reading. It lays out, with a degree of frankness not often allowed, the scale of the challenge that faces our country in terms of how we sustain and renew both the Welsh national health service and the care...
Angela Burns: I’m very glad that Joyce Watson asked that question because you and I have discussed this issue on a number of occasions. I wonder if, Minister or Cabinet Secretary, you would look at how we might improve the planning application process, in particular for super farms, to ensure that drainage and adequate slurry storage is really taken into account, because when a farm grows from 600 or 700...
Angela Burns: It’s not just the service that’s in crisis; some of the foster carers and the children that they care for are in crisis. Cabinet Secretary, what assurances can you give us that looked-after children will be able to access emergency support services, such as child and adolescent mental health services, if they are placed in foster placements that are outside the local authority that is...
Angela Burns: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the All-Wales Medicines Strategy Group’s decision not to make Avastin, a potentially life-prolonging cancer drug, routinely available on the Welsh NHS? (TAQ0041)
Angela Burns: Thank you for that very disappointing answer, I have to say. The All Wales Medicines Strategy Group does estimate that each year around 50 cervical cancer patients in Wales will receive a terminal diagnosis who could require Avastin treatment. But given your endorsement of their recommendation, I find it very hard to understand the process going forward for these patients. Cervical cancer...
Angela Burns: I’m very pleased, as a member of this committee, to have a chance to speak in support of this report, and I’d like to put on record my thanks to all those who came to give evidence before us, and to the clerking teams that support us so ably. Medical recruitment and workforce planning are two of the most important issues affecting our NHS going forward, and we need to ensure that we find...
Angela Burns: Will you take an intervention?
Angela Burns: I just want to talk about the fit for the future paper in its generality. You talk about the fact that it’s bringing together everything and it’s going to bring forward a new method of governance, et cetera. So, can you tell me, Cabinet Secretary, why does it make only, I think, one mention of the regional partnership boards and why is there absolutely no mention of how GP clusters should...
Angela Burns: Diolch, Llywydd. I’m not frightened of change and, to be fair, all the people who took part in this debate, I think without exception, weren’t particularly frightened of change. I think everyone acknowledged the fact that CHCs do need to change in some way or other. However, Cabinet Secretary, your carefully well-modulated platitudes do not reassure me, because let’s be very clear, this...
Angela Burns: What is the Welsh Government doing to encourage inward investment into Wales?
Angela Burns: First Minister, I see from reports today that your Government has refused to release full sets of data to assist the Prime Minister’s race disparity audit. And its findings are stark contrast for both the UK and Wales. I do wonder, though, is your reluctance in releasing the data because you haven’t got it, or is it simply that you won’t get it? And the reason why this is so important...
Angela Burns: I’d like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement today. In your statement, Cabinet Secretary, you highlight some welcome examples of good practice. What I’d like to know, though, is when could we see the results of all the pilots that were run—good, bad or indifferent—such as the health literacy questionnaire that was run by Cwm Taf, or the patient activation measures that...
Angela Burns: Minister, I’d like to thank you for your statement today. I also welcome the publication of the population assessments, although I am extremely puzzled as to how these health boards and other organisations managed to make strategic plans in the past without such a thing. I am very surprised to hear that it took so long to deliver them, because I would have thought that a key component of...
Angela Burns: What is the Welsh Government doing to support small and medium-sized enterprises in west Wales?
Angela Burns: 1. What plans does the First Minister have to support the pharmaceutical industry in Wales? (OAQ51217)
Angela Burns: Indeed, you do have a proven track record on that, and I really welcome it. I recognise that your Government has attracted considerable investment into the whole life sciences business, which, in our country, employs some 11,000 people. I’m very concerned though about what might happen as a consequence of Brexit, and I wondered what—[Interruption.]
Angela Burns: Thank you. I just wondered what discussion your Government has had with its Westminster counterparts around the future of regulatory frameworks post Brexit, and are you intending to feed into the House of Commons Health Select Committee inquiry, which is looking at post-Brexit arrangements to guarantee the supply of medicines, devices and products, and particularly in relation to our ability...
Angela Burns: Leader of the house, I’d like to ask for two statements, if possible. I’d like to ask for a statement to be brought forward by the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport on reports that Wales’s biggest health board, Betsi Cadwaladr, which is in Government special measures, is set to overspend by some £50 million this year. I think this is a matter of great concern and has...
Angela Burns: Cabinet Secretary, one of the challenges faced by the Ynni’r Fro community energy scheme was the difficulty in obtaining planning permission and consents when wishing to create such community energy projects. How have you addressed this after the report on the Ynni’r Fro community scheme, and would that not be one of the key reasons why, in fact, so many of these community energy projects...
Angela Burns: I was delighted just then to hear you say ‘new entrants’ to the farming schemes, because I think that the young entrants scheme is a very welcome step and we are very supportive of it. However, I find in my constituency I have a number of people who don’t fit into those criteria. Families have changed, people are working longer, and family dynamics are very different. You have people...
