Vaughan Gething: Carwyn Jones.
Vaughan Gething: Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am grateful for the opportunity to provide Members with an update six months on from the introduction of the Human Transplantation (Wales) Act 2013 and the introduction of deemed consent for deceased organ donation in Wales. This fully came into force on 1 December 2015. Members will know that people aged 18 and over who have lived in Wales for more than 12...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for his comments. In particular, I acknowledge the work of, as I said, a range of people in the Chamber, including Dai Lloyd. In the interim, when he left us for a brief period of time, we actually passed the legislation that we’re now debating and discussing today. To start, I think there were three particular points and questions that you made for me to answer. The...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for that series of questions. I’ll just deal first with the point that I think was about a misunderstanding, rather than anything else, because I was actually referring to the role of the family in not supporting donation, but of someone who’s actually made a decision to go on to the register to opt in. That still happens, but that’s part of what we need to do. It’s part of...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the comments from the UKIP health spokesperson and welcome to your own role. I’m pleased to hear your very clear support for the legislation and the outcomes that we wish to achieve. A part of what we’re doing today, and we’ll be doing throughout the rest of this year and the rest of the time we have a communication campaign, is to encourage people to make...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the comments and questions, Dai Lloyd. I’m more than happy, as I said in response to Rhun ap Iorwerth, to continue the conversation with other Parliaments and other parts of the NHS family across the UK. As I say, I know they are actively considering and interested in the progress of our legislation and the practical impact on the numbers of people going on to be organ donors....
Vaughan Gething: I thank Mohammad Asghar for his particular points in an area of real challenge for us. I’m particularly grateful that you’ve highlighted the fact that, of people on the waiting list, there is a significantly higher than expected number, certainly out of proportion with the general population, of people from black and Asian origin communities, and yet, of the people who are registered on...
Vaughan Gething: We published a strategic plan for primary care services in Wales early last year, backed up by significant annual investment of over £40 million. The First Minister also recently made a commitment to look at increasing GP numbers in Wales, in addition to other healthcare professionals who can support GPs.
Vaughan Gething: The health board has made positive progress on a number of fronts under special measures, but I expect to see continued and sustained improvement in key areas before it is removed from special measures.
Vaughan Gething: We are investing £750,000 in the roll-out of the Choose Pharmacy information technology application to 400 pharmacies across Wales by March 2018. This will enable health boards to optimise the contribution of community pharmacies in the delivery of high-quality primary care services in Wales.
Vaughan Gething: While I am encouraged to see a further decline in the number of adults smoking in Wales, it is clear many of us continue to eat and drink too much, and are not exercising enough. I will be making an oral statement on the results in Plenary on 21 June.
Vaughan Gething: The Welsh Government provides support to improve workplace health and well-being through a number of approaches including Healthy Working Wales, NHS occupational health services and the European social fund-funded in-work support service.
Vaughan Gething: My priorities are to deliver and integrate more services locally, improve access and to continue to address service sustainability through our national primary care plan and I expect health boards to develop primary care clusters and to invest in the capacity and capability of the workforce.
Vaughan Gething: Tinnitus therapy advice and counselling services are available in Wales although they do not all use the tinnitus retraining methodology.
Vaughan Gething: We already invest in training opportunities across Wales. I recognise that there are difficulties in recruiting to some training programmes in north Wales. We are working with the Wales Deanery and others to identify steps to address this situation, including more focused planning arrangements and different training models.
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question in Diabetes Week. We invest nearly £100 million each year in specific diabetes care and we will continue to invest £1 million a year for improvement 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...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for his follow-up question. Of course, we have two types of diabetes: type 1, which is not related to lifestyle factors at all, and type 2, which is, frankly, lifestyle-factor related. So, we need to deal with both of those issues. A number of children at varying ages understand that they will have type 1 diabetes and we do need to make sure that the care and support that...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. I was very pleased to join you in the event yesterday to highlight Diabetes Week and the work they’re undertaking here in Wales to improve the position. The point about undiagnosed diabetes applies both to type 1 and type 2 and the risk factors that are there. It’s a particularly difficult case, and I’ll be happy to meet again with you and the cross-party...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. It’s a fair point to raise about what we need to do, not so much about the health service responding to the significant rise in cancer referrals—in fact, in the last seven years, there’s been a doubling in urgent cancer referrals into the NHS, and it’s a remarkable achievement that it has managed to deal with those in such a timely manner, given the...
Vaughan Gething: Well, I think there’s a fairly high awareness of both cervical cancer screening and also bowel cancer screening. The challenge is how we make it easy for people to take that up. On bowel cancer, in particular, it’s not so much about the advice people get, because we will follow the advice we’re given about where is the most appropriate point for people to be screened, but it’s about...
