Vaughan Gething: Well, thank you for the series of questions in there. I don’t share your optimistic assessment that if people understand there’s a test or the risk of cancer that people will undertake the test. I’m not even sure that a lot of people don’t make that choice. So, there are lots of risk factors for health outcomes that people ignore. There is often a very high awareness of health...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. Mental health is a priority area for this Government. As I said yesterday, in response to a range of questions, we will be refreshing the mental health delivery plan. That will take place this year as well, so it’s not been forgotten. And, really importantly, in undertaking both the consultation and delivering the action plan, we’ll be talking with and...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. I do wonder if you thought you were asking a question about the English system, because in Wales we have ring-fenced mental health funding, and as I said earlier, it is the biggest single area of spend within NHS Wales. I’ve seen campaigns that have taken place on an England and Wales basis, and, actually, they’re really talking about the English system. I...
Vaughan Gething: I don’t think local government provide direct mental health services, but they do provide services that have an impact on mental health and well-being. We all recognise that. For example, the conversation earlier about physical health and activity. Being physically active isn’t just a good thing for your physical health; it’s actually incredibly good for your mental health and...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for the question and for highlighting an area where we’ve made real progress over the last calendar year. Because at the high point that we reached in summer last year, we had a real challenge in understanding what could and should take place to reduce the diagnostic waiting times. We’re now in a much better place and MRI is a good example: there are a number of health...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for his second question on the area. On this, there are two points that I would make: the first is that in some of the areas on diagnostics where we have waits, it is tied up in workforce. So, there are challenges for us, for example, in training more sonographers in Wales. Where they’re currently trained, you tend to see better outcomes. For example, Swansea and west...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the third question. There’s been a clear recognition across parties and within the service for some time that to improve cancer outcomes, we need to improve access to diagnostic certainty, but what we’re not doing is actually implementing a different target on diagnostics within the cancer pathway. I’m not persuaded that that will actually help us to get where we want to...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. Our aim is to ensure that people in Pembrokeshire are provided with high-quality, compassionate health services. Our focus will be on improving patient outcomes and in doing so, we will be led by the most up-to-date clinical advice and evidence.
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. We rehearsed this argument before the election and I’m sure we will do more than once afterwards. I don’t see the Member’s re-election to his constituency as a referendum on this particular issue. There are real challenges in this area between a very clear demand for locality versus the quality of the service that is provided as well, and you’ll be aware...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the two questions. Yes, I’ll be happy to arrange a convenient time to visit both hospitals and to meet staff in the midwifery units. On your specific point about the dedicated ambulance vehicle, this was an important part of providing confidence about the service to make sure that there was emergency transfer, if needed, to take women and their babies to Glangwili. In many...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for the question. In understanding what we do, I go back to saying that we have to be led by the evidence and the advice. To make this work, it’s perhaps instructive to look at what happened at Prince Philip—not at the distinct model there, but that Prince Philip Hospital stopped being an issue because clinicians within Prince Philip Hospital had a conversation about...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for the question. We will not establish a Welsh cancer drugs fund. The English cancer drugs fund will be scrapped at the end of this month. We are prioritising the establishment of a new treatment fund as one of our key commitments in the first 100 days. I expect to be able to tell Members more about it. The fund will support the speedy introduction of innovative and...
Vaughan Gething: Well, we, of course, already undertake a range of mobile cancer treatment services, and you will be very well aware of our ambition to undertake more care within the community—that shift from secondary to primary care. It’s an important part of what we wish to do. That would certainly be the case within cancer services as well. We have had well-established programmes, working with...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for her question, and she is right; she has taken a very consistent interest in this particular area. You’ll be aware that, in the discussions we had prior to the formation of this Government, in the compact with Plaid Cymru, an IPFR review was one of the things that we agreed upon between our parties. I expect to come forward with some proposals, after...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for the question. One of the points I’ll make is that, on life sciences and the life sciences industry, we’ve actually got a good record on seeing development here, and the proton beam developments that could take place in south-east Wales are being led by the private sector, and that could lead to improved access in the NHS here in Wales but also potentially improve...
Vaughan Gething: I expect health boards to work with their partners to ensure people have timely access to emergency care services when they need them. The national programme for unscheduled care is driving a whole-system approach to facilitate sustainable change and improvement for unscheduled health and care services across Wales.
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the follow-up question. I expect that when figures are published for April, we’ll see a further improvement on 12-hour waits, and Cardiff and Vale University Local Health Board have actually done a relatively good job in driving down the number of 12-hour waits. They know, from my own point of view, that I expect to see further progress made so that there are fewer and fewer...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for the question. It highlights the fact that there are UK-wide pressures, and we’re taking different approaches to them. In England, they’ve taken an approach that has reduced funding into adult social care. We spend 7 per cent higher on health and social services per head, or £172, more in Wales than in England. We’ve also taken a different approach because of the...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you, Presiding Officer. The Welsh health survey gives us an overview of the state of the nation’s health. It covers health status, health service use and health-related behaviour. I’m making a statement today on the headline messages, but there will be more learning and analysis of the survey later in the year. The recently published Welsh health survey 2015 shows us that 19 per...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for his series of comments and questions and the broadly positive start, and I too look forward to seeing more learning from the survey as it undergoes more analysis to help inform where we are and where we want to be. I’ll start with your point about e-cigarettes. Just to reiterate that we continue to keep the evidence on e-cigarette use under review, both in terms of...
