Angela Burns: Of course, the Welsh Government is a major procurer throughout the whole of Wales, and indeed the organisations that are responsible to the Welsh Government, and so you have a huge amount of influence. You mentioned earlier supply chain interventions; are you able to, or do you, indeed, issue guidance that gives a weighting to organisations so that they can actually give more marks towards,...
Angela Burns: Minister, I'd like to thank you for your statement this morning—or this afternoon—and for bringing forward the further detail on this Bill that you laid yesterday. I think I need to start by asking you whether or not you can explain to us why you believe we need this legislation. Because, of course, we would all want to support greater quality in our public services, especially with the...
Angela Burns: Many of the older people who come to me have been very grateful for the grants that they've had to adapt their homes or to renovate them, because as you and I and most of the Members here know, stability in your home is incredibly important as you get older because you are able then to stay connected to your community, things are more familiar, and it helps with mental health issues,...
Angela Burns: My colleague for Mid and West Wales has made some very good points, but leaving it for a debate tomorrow, for thought over the next few months, the next few years, I don't think gets to the nub of the current crisis we have. First Minister, you know as well as I do we have a number of health boards that are in a dire state. We've got a lack of fresh blood, we have the same team going around,...
Angela Burns: Minister, thank you very much for bringing forward your statement on this report. I think this report is very good. I was really pleased to see that it's clear, it's concise, it's got a very well defined set of objectives, and it actually talks about how we can monitor it and measure the outcomes. It is a rare jewel, and I'm delighted to be able to ask you a few questions on this. It talks...
Angela Burns: Minister, the mutual investment model that finances most of the twenty-first century schools programme in Carmarthenshire and throughout the rest of Wales is a really welcome evolution from the old-fashioned PFI, but, of course, with all of these issues, there's always a balance to be had between loss of control and being able to be fiscally exposed. Now, the mutual investment model does have...
Angela Burns: Minister, I'm sure you're aware of the eye disease keratoconus, which can lead to patients completely losing their sight. Can you please explain why the recognised treatment for this disease is not available on the Welsh NHS?
Angela Burns: Minister, for £2,000 you can nip down to the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend—which, the last time I looked, was an NHS hospital—and you can pay an NHS surgeon, in his spare time, for £2,000, to actually give you the treatment that saves the sight in your eye. I fail to see that that's to do with capacity; I think it's to do with will. Will you undertake to look at this process?...
Angela Burns: Minister, it's entirely about money and about resources. And, as I've said, you've got the resources there—I can pop you in my car, drive you down there, and show you them. The money is not very great. I totally understand that if you're talking about a very, very expensive treatment, then you might look at the cost-benefit analysis. I can totally understand that, if you're talking about an...
Angela Burns: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to thank Helen Mary Jones for bringing forward this proposal for a Bill on health service management. I can assure you that the Welsh Conservatives would not only support your proposals, but seek to strengthen and increase some of the proposed Bill's provisions, because it ties in very much with a five-point plan for health that we announced in...
Angela Burns: Thank you. I'm delighted to have the opportunity, Deputy Presiding Officer, to open the debate today. I want to begin by thanking Elin and the team at Royal National Institute of Blind People Cymru for their assistance in providing some excellent case studies and for enabling and illuminating and moving the patient panel, and I know a great number of them are with us today.
Angela Burns: It's a timely debate because of the recent publication of the new performance measures, especially as sight loss is a subject that will impact many of us, either directly or indirectly, throughout our lives. I want to begin by actually thanking the Minister and the Welsh Government for listening to users and experts, and for introducing the new performance measures for eye care patients. It...
Angela Burns: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Minister, as I said at the beginning of my speech, the Welsh Government have been brave, but you need to be braver still, and there are a couple of very, very clear things that you could do. The treatments here aren't expensive. What we need is consistency, we need the feet of the health boards to be held to the fire to stop them from cancelling again and again...
Angela Burns: Minister, Brexit tends to generate far more heat than light these days, with rumours and claims and counter-claims swirling around, and I think it behoves us all to try to learn the realities that are there on the ground. Our parliamentary colleagues in Westminster—there's a group called the Young Legal Aid Lawyers who have taken some 45 Members with them, out shadowing them, out on the...
Angela Burns: Of course, when times are tough, we need to be far more creative, and I'd like to bring your attention, Minister, to an organisation called Dr.M'z in Carmarthen. It's a youth project. It's highly successful. It's extremely popular. It has fought tooth and nail to carry on surviving. And it is funded by Carmarthen County Council in part, but also by about seven or eight other large...
Angela Burns: I'd like to thank the committee very much for doing this report. Unfortunately, I personally was absent on the day that you did the one-day report, but I've read your report, I've read the Government response, and of course I'm reflecting the commentary of many of my constituents who come to see me over these kinds of services. And I noted the Government's response to the recommendations made...
Angela Burns: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm delighted to move the motion tabled in the name of Darren Millar. During the debate today the Welsh Conservatives will demonstrate that not only does Wales currently have the worst air quality in the UK—a damning statistic in itself—but it's further compounded by the awful reality that 6 per cent of deaths annually in Wales are as a result of poor...
Angela Burns: If my esteemed colleague would just hold on a few more moments, I will develop that a little bit more. But, what you have just said absolutely reinforces our call for a clean air Bill, because those are the kinds of discussions that we as an Assembly, within all our committees and taking appropriate evidence from people, could actually start to boil down—how far can we push it, where do we...
Angela Burns: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I formally move those amendments. But I'm afraid that my colleague over the Chamber here, Llyr Huws Gruffydd, has said exceptionally eloquently pretty much everything I wanted to say. Because we have an NHS that is under an immense amount of pressure. We have staff who work over and above the call of duty. They work longer hours and they don't chase...
Angela Burns: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Minister, we already have people who are leaving Wales to live in other parts of the home nations in order to be able to access drugs that they cannot access here. So, given Jeremy Corbyn's giveaway speech at conference, when he talked about having social care free at the point of delivery, could you confirm whether or not that is one of the work streams that...
