Vaughan Gething: ...through the NHS-led diabetes implementation group. We expect to see improved patient outcomes by consistently meeting national service standards, supporting patient self-management through education programmes and helping to prevent people at high risk from developing diabetes.
Vaughan Gething: ...health measures; it’s not just a health and social services or even sport responsibility—there’s a whole range of other people with an issue here, for example the work that we do on healthy schools and the way that schools engage. In every school I visit in my own constituency and around the country, you see a very clear healthy eating and healthy drinking message and in particular...
Vaughan Gething: ...again with you and the cross-party group. I understand the mother is coming to the next cross-party group to explain her own experiences. There’s a message here about awareness between health and education, about factors that could have been picked up at an earlier stage. I’m really pleased to see that the mother is keen to ensure that other people learn the lesson and understand and...
Vaughan Gething: ...activity director has been jointly appointed by the Welsh Government, Sport Wales and Public Health Wales to develop recommendations to improve levels of physical activity. Together with work on education and behaviour change, we are also working to influence the food environment. We are expanding nutritional standards in more settings, and we’re currently developing them for both care...
Vaughan Gething: ...cent are a healthy weight. But our problem is that we’ve not seen the sort of reductions in overweight and obese children that we wish to see, and to combat that we need to see what happens pre school, during school and outside school as well, and we need a culture change broadly across society and within families as well—so an understanding of what the impact is upon a child of an...
Vaughan Gething: ...to work and to live, and actually the cost it produces for health services. Already, about 10 per cent of NHS spend, we think, is spent on areas linked to diabetes. On your points generally about school sports and physical activity, and the links between our work and that of both the children and communities portfolio and, of course, the education Secretary, we recognise that there are...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for those particular points and questions. On the selling of school playing fields, this is a Government that is investing in the infrastructure of our school estates, and I’ve visited a whole number of areas where we’re actually seeing an improvement in people’s ability to use outdoor space in particular for physical activity and recreation. There’s no excuse to be given...
Vaughan Gething: ...there are other alternative referrals for people who don’t need the specialist support. That is, to look at the different range of alternative interventions and support available. For example, a school counselling-based service, what Families First do—all the different interventions that are needed there to support people who need some form of help and support, even if it isn’t at...
Vaughan Gething: ...We’ve had the Jenkins review and I expect to see advice on that in the near future. We’ve also had the review undertaken by Robin Williams, the former vice-chancellor of Swansea University, on education and training. So, we’re properly considering where we are, and what we want to do in the future. It has to take account of the health service we have and the health service we want to...
Vaughan Gething: ...more likely to want to opt in to a career in primary care as well. That has the support, again, of our key stakeholders, as something for us to look at. In terms of your point about a new medical school, I recognise why the Member would want to make a bid for a new medical school in her constituency, and I recognise the real interest there is in this particular area. What I’ve said, and...
Vaughan Gething: ...and demand that we face. Simply trying to increase capacity will not be enough to deliver the health and care services that we need. In the summer recess, I jointly met the deans of both medical schools in Wales, and they identified the importance of reviewing the activities already in place to encourage Welsh students to aspire to a career in medicine and to encourage them to consider...
Vaughan Gething: ...to a conclusion. I didn’t mention it in my statement, but I have mentioned before in this Chamber, the point about Wales-domiciled students. I met the deans of both Cardiff and Swansea medical schools, and I met them together, rather than having separate conversations where they could tell me what the other people weren’t doing. I had a joint conversation and it was actually very...
Vaughan Gething: ...well. They both have good records of not just bringing people to study medicine here in Wales, but of keeping them here as well. What we want to try and learn and understand, in looking at medical education and training in the future, is what more we can do to make sure that the experience is a rewarding one, that primary care is properly held up as a genuinely rewarding career and that...
Vaughan Gething: ...student support arrangements. You’ll be aware, of course, of the Diamond review published yesterday, and so I will be working across Government, and in particular with the Cabinet Secretary for Education. We’ll be considering the recommendations of the Diamond review carefully, because this Government is committed to making sure that finance is not a barrier to a career in nursing....
Vaughan Gething: ...with nursing representatives since taking office. I won’t undertake the short but formal inquiry suggested by Angela Burns, but I do look forward to working with stakeholders in both the NHS and education, and of course RCN and Unison, as major stakeholders within the nursing profession, as we work through our proposals for the future. In terms of timescale, I’m happy to confirm that...
Vaughan Gething: ...delivery group has had a focus on prevention and support, with an emphasis on co-production with the third sector in particular. The diabetes implementation group has developed patient resources to educate and support people living with diabetes, covering subjects such as the importance of retinal screening, foot care and hypoglycaemia. The stroke implementation group is piloting an...
Vaughan Gething: ...but for some of that money to then be used to deliver on recognised priorities. A good example is one that you’ve mentioned—the diabetes implementation group. They’ve actually had structured education and patient education as one of their five key priorities this year. As you’ve highlighted, we recognise that not enough people take up the opportunity for structured education,...
Vaughan Gething: ...being one example where it has happened. But, equally, that integration with other areas of service as well, so not just primary and secondary care, not just social services, but with colleagues in education and housing too, and recognising the role this has to play in improving a range of different areas. And I think perhaps, on rehabilitation, there’s a really good example where the...
Vaughan Gething: ..., with both the undergraduate and postgraduate entry courses that are run, and I want to make sure we maintain that quality, but also that we have a real springboard for more careers in medical education and training, both here in Wales and across the UK.
Vaughan Gething: ...still be reliant on international recruitment as well as doing more of what we could and should do to make sure that people within Wales and the UK have a real career and a real stake in medical education, training, living and working as doctors in our country.
