Angela Burns: 5. Will the Minister provide an update on the Welsh Government’s plans for neonatal services in Wales? OAQ(5)0067(HWS)
Angela Burns: Cabinet Secretary, you are absolutely right, united and connected is totally vital, and I’m very supportive of this. However, we also need to be fiscally responsible. You’ve already talked about the £750 million that it could cost to reopen this line. From a written question by my colleague Andrew Davies, we know that there’s been at least one scoping study of £30,000. There is a bus...
Angela Burns: Thank you for that answer. Cabinet Secretary, we’ve had a number of high-profile collapses of businesses involving an awful lot of public money, and it’s not just here on your watch or indeed your predecessor’s—she was the one who made a lot of these decisions—but it goes right back to the days of Ieuan Wyn Jones and £2 million for ragworm farms, which we got not one penny back...
Angela Burns: I’m glad to recognise the improvement in outcomes. However, you will be aware that a recent report by Bliss highlighted that only two out of 10 neonatal units had enough nurses to staff their cots in line with national standards. If you fail to address this matter for next September’s trainee nurse intake, then will it not become impossible for your Government to fulfil the commitment...
Angela Burns: I’m very grateful to be able to take part in this individual Member debate today, and I would like to tender David Melding’s regrets at not being able to be here to speak in this debate. The state of nature report is a key piece of evidence in helping us to understand what action we can take to protect and preserve our precious nature and ecosystems, and it will be a key piece of evidence...
Angela Burns: First Minister, I’m sure you are aware that there’s been no progress in survival rates for pancreatic cancer during the last 40 years, despite the extraordinary leaps and bounds we’ve made in many other medicines and with many other conditions. Now, there’s currently a research project collating samples from six hospitals across England and Wales, including Swansea’s Singleton, and...
Angela Burns: Minister, thank you very much for your statement today. The first point I would like to concur with you on is to show appreciation to the staff who help maintain our NHS services during the winter, when, I think we all recognise, there do seem to be extraordinary pressures, and I would like to pay my tribute to them as well. This is a pretty upbeat statement, and I’m quite sure it reflects...
Angela Burns: 5. Will the Minister outline his strategies for improving play facilities for children across Wales? OAQ(5)0066(CC)
Angela Burns: Thank you for that, Minister. You referred to Wales as being a play-friendly country, and I’m sure you appreciate the vital role that exercise plays in having a healthy upbringing and making us healthier adults. However, these spaces are under immense pressure. They’re being sold off or they’re just disused or just plain nasty. People don’t want to go there, because they don’t feel...
Angela Burns: Thank you, Presiding Officer. There was a day in February 2015 when my husband was told to expect the worst, and my devastated family put their lives on hold. I had sepsis and the battle to beat the bug wasn’t going well. Who knew—not I—that a cough could open the door to a ruthless and determined enemy intent on destruction? Today we launched the cross-party group on sepsis to a packed...
Angela Burns: I’m grateful for the motion before us today, because it reminds us all of the immense contribution made to our NHS by many workers from overseas. I’d like to take this opportunity to send them a clear message of thanks and gratitude for all that they have done for our country and continue to do so. There are already some huge shortages in certain staff areas. Between 2013 and 2015, there...
Angela Burns: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to do just that. I’m very grateful to Plaid Cymru for bringing forward this motion, although I would say to Rhun ap Iorwerth that he shouldn’t be quite so sensitive about being ribbed for relying so heavily upon an English survey, when he normally eschews all things English. In fact, Plaid Cymru have taken me to task so many times for...
Angela Burns: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to give a minute of my time to Andrew R.T. Davies. ‘Life through a different lens’ pretty much sums up the experiences of people with dyslexia. Their way of seeing the world is changed, because they have dyslexia, which is defined as ‘a complex set of cognitive problems, which affects people in different ways and to different degrees.’ I...
Angela Burns: Although dyslexia does not mean that pupils are illiterate, a number, especially those that the system has missed out or forgotten, may well be. We will all have heard of adults saying they did not get diagnosed until much later in life and talking of the impact it has had on them. A study by KPMG finds that by the age of 37, each illiterate person has cost the taxpayer an additional £45,000...
Angela Burns: Would you take an intervention? I’d be absolutely delighted to do that. In fact, Minister, I know my office are trying to get hold of you today because I’ve just finished a complete analysis on autism in terms of the most common problems that children with autistic spectrum disorder face, because I was trying to lobby you. I would like to take this opportunity publicly to say, if you...
Angela Burns: Would you take another intervention? Thank you, and I’m very, very grateful for that very positive response. There is one area, though, that I think is completely within your power today to make a difference, and that’s on the subject of when a dyslexic child is told, ‘You are on such a place on the scale’ and, therefore, ‘When you go to do your GCSEs, you’re going to get 25 per...
Angela Burns: Will the First Minister outline what support the Welsh Government is providing to the Wales Air Ambulance Service?
Angela Burns: Minister, as far as I can see, Yr Egin will support the Welsh Labour goal and the Welsh Government’s goal of new technical hubs in rural areas, and so I’m 100 per cent behind this. The question I would like to ask you—. I’m very well aware that the funding has been in place. I’m very well aware, as I know you are, that S4C carried out due diligence, looked at a number of different...
Angela Burns: First of all, I’d like to very much welcome this report from the chief medical officer, and I’d like to thank Dr Frank Atherton and Professor Chris Jones for the work that they’ve put into it. I think this report very much demonstrates that a one-size-all-fits approach does not work for the Welsh health service. As Rhun ap Iorwerth has talked about the social gradient, I’d just like...
Angela Burns: Would you take an intervention? Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Of course, the other thing is that a lot of the people we’ve talked about today who struggle to access a number of these services do go to the chemist. They go to the chemist on a regular basis to get the medicines that they’ve been prescribed because of their lifestyles, and that gives us a really great chance for the...
