Angela Burns: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Good afternoon, Cabinet Secretary. Will you please outline what procedures are in place for hospital patients to administer their own routine medications?
Angela Burns: No.
Angela Burns: Let me clarify it slightly for you, Cabinet Secretary, as you seem to be struggling slightly there. I notice, for example, that the Member for Cynon Valley recently tabled some written questions seeking information around the procedures in place surrounding hospital patients self-administering their medication. It appeared that she received some fairly stock answers to it. Now, let's have a...
Angela Burns: Well, I'm pleased to hear you say that, and, of course, the parliamentary review really recommended—well, had two key thrusts. The first was that we want the general public to begin to take more responsibility for their own health and to manage themselves in a more appropriate way, and the second thrust was that we want people to go into hospital less often, and when they're there to get...
Angela Burns: But it's not, and that's my point.
Angela Burns: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to thank Members of Plaid Cymru for bringing forward this debate, which we will be supporting more than wholeheartedly, because in today's NHS we are constantly talking about the need to prevent rather than cure and isn't prevention so much easier, and, if we can go out and capture people who might have the misfortune to develop a cancer of this...
Angela Burns: Just to clarify, as we're swapping numbers, we looked at the NHS census data— the numbers of young men, or boys, in Wales today—and if we were to go out and start from ground zero and give them all that very essential injection, or two injections, and then move forward from there.
Angela Burns: I'd like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for health for bringing forward today's statement. It's 2018—70 years of our national health service and, wow, what a rollercoaster it has been. Like you, Cabinet Secretary, I absolutely recognise the determination and passion of Aneurin Bevan. He saw a need, he built on ideas put forward during the war years, and as part of Attlee's Government he was...
Angela Burns: First of all, I'd like to thank Lynne Neagle and her committee for this report. Lynne, you are fearless and tough and I have great admiration and total respect for you. I think the children and young people's committee is in very good hands, and if it was up to me I think the children of Wales would be good and safe in your hands too. I think the 'Mind over matter' report has got to the heart...
Angela Burns: Minister, I would be keen to get a greater understanding of how local authorities measure and collate the reasons for homelessness. As you know, in my constituency, we have a case of a significant number of park home residents who, through the changes in law made by Welsh Government, are under threat of becoming homeless. Now, in response to a letter of mine, you said that you'd already had...
Angela Burns: I do welcome the expansion of medical school places, although I do regret that you didn't choose to announce that expansion here when this has been a topic that has exercised so many of us on so many occasions. We do have a shortage of doctors, as you're well aware, in certain disciplines such as general practice, paediatrics and rheumatology. Are you able, through these places, to seek to...
Angela Burns: I'm grateful to all the witnesses who came to give evidence to the committee. Some of the personal stories that we heard were absolutely harrowing and have been an eye-opener for a great many of us. Cabinet Secretary, I'm sure that you will agree with me that it's completely unacceptable that powerful medication is being used inappropriately or not being routinely reviewed—medications...
Angela Burns: That could be a factor. But I know, for example, as a person who has relatives who have struggled with dementia, I would be appalled if I thought that I was going to put a loved one into a home that had a classification that said, 'This is a care home that is able to deal holistically and in the round with a person who has dementia', and I would believe that, and I'd go, 'Oh great, my loved...
Angela Burns: Would you take an intervention?
Angela Burns: On your point of the abrogation of responsibility, in saying that perhaps health boards should be the ones responsible for the implementation of NICE guidelines, do you think we need to give an organisation such as Care Inspectorate Wales more teeth on behalf of the Government, or on behalf of us, so that they can make sure that those who break those guidelines are suitably punished?
Angela Burns: Well, of course, you hit on the word 'play', and you said that everybody should have access to be able to play, especially young children. We talk in this place a lot about obesity, about making our kids healthy and fit and active and all the rest of it, and yet, First Minister, what I'd be interested to know is what is your Government doing—your Government, the one here in Wales—to...
Angela Burns: Thank you very much indeed. I do only have one question, but a very small preamble, which is that this report is the culmination of two and a half years of detailed work. Several thousand documents, some previously unpublished, have been reviewed by the team, 200 interviews with current and former staff and current and recent service users, across the six counties of north Wales, and it's...
Angela Burns: Leader of the house, I'm regularly approached, as I know many Assembly Members are, by organisations that have got ideas about how they might be able to help to improve, digitise and streamline public services. Many of these organisations have proven track records throughout the rest of the UK and, indeed, in Europe, but they are finding it increasingly difficult to interface with the Welsh...
Angela Burns: First Minister, for a number of years now, I have used First Minister's questions to ask you to address when your Government plans to meet its cancer waiting time targets, and you have, to be fair, given me regular assurances that it will happen in the very near future. But the latest figures for June 2018 showed that the target for patients referred via the urgent route is being missed by...
Angela Burns: Following on from that, Cabinet Secretary, of course you will be aware of various stories at the beginning of school term of children being punished for not having the correct school uniform. I absolutely buy into the notion that we want all the children to look the same, and it's very important for school discipline and school morale, and so on. But one of the concerns I have is this view...
