Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: No, I'm not going to give way again.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: The supplementary budget is going to be coming out very shortly, and you'll get all the detail in there. You will see the impact of the inflationary pressures, and they are way over anything that was in unallocated funding that you looked at in June. Every penny of our budget is needed. But even if we did have underspends, let's be clear that this could not be used to fund pay awards. This is...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Sure.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: I can assure you that my officials are working on this as we speak. There's a lot of work being done. I do think people need to understand that we do have a legal requirement in terms of safe staffing levels. If you're saying, 'Don't use agency staff', what that will mean is that we'll have to close wards. There will be accident and emergency services that will have to stop. That's the...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: No, I'm not doing any more interventions, if you don't mind, because I know the Llywydd is going to call me to order very soon.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you. I want to give you an assurance that the nurse bursary will remain. I'd like to emphasise that what we need is a fair funding settlement from the UK Government, which recognises the hard work of all of our NHS staff and other public sector workers and provides them with a fair reward for the jobs that they do. I take this opportunity again to implore the UK Government to consider...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Strep A infections cause a number of common childhood illnesses. It's not unusual to see cases associated with nurseries and schools. Nurseries and schools have received guidance from Public Health Wales, and parents of unwell children are being advised to seek medical advice for diagnosis and treatment.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch yn fawr. Can I add my expressions of condolence to, in particular, the family who've recently lost a child? I think we all understand the real concern that many parents are suffering today because of the increase that we are seeing in strep A in our communities. Public Health Wales issued advice to schools and nurseries at the end of November. Staff should be aware of the possibility...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much. Well, Public Health Wales is leading on ensuring that information is available to the public. I've contacted them today to ask them to simplify the language, because I think, sometimes, it becomes too technical in nature. People perhaps don't understand the difference between strep A and iGAS, and people use terms that the public don't understand. So, I've asked them to...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much. As I set out in my statement, parents who suspect their children have scarlet fever are advised that they should contact their GP or they should contact 111. Those facilities are available and people are using them. I would suggest at this point that they don't go to A&E, unless they are directed by 111 or their GP.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: I think it's important, we've obviously put a lot of additional funding into 111. Obviously, as you say, we are working very closely with UK Government to make sure we don't run out of those antibiotics. We think this has happened because perhaps of the lack of social mixing over the past couple of years. What we're seeing now is a number of cases of this common bacterial infection—let's...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: I'm saddened that our health workers have got to a point where they feel they need to take industrial action. I fully understand and sympathise with their situation, but, without additional funding from the UK Government, there is simply no money to increase our pay offer without substantial cuts to staffing and essential services. I'm meeting with representatives of all healthcare unions...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much. It's all very well for you to say, 'Da iawn'. The fact is, we've got a set amount of money. That's it. Right? So, we've got a choice: you either cut services or you cut the number of people in order to give a pay rise. Now, I don't think that's a space that the trade unions will want to enter, but obviously that is an option. That's an option. But, I think we've got to be...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Can I just be clear that the Scottish Government work within a different framework from the framework that we have? So, we have signed up to the independent pay commission. That's something that all the unions—they all agreed to do that. They all gave their evidence. We gave our evidence. They take independent evidence from people who know about the economy, inflation and all of those...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Sorry, I'm just rescuing my water now. Thank you very much. I have made clear my expectation that all patients in Wales should receive equitable access to fracture liaison services, and we are working with health boards to achieve this.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much, Natasha, and thank you for the opportunity to draw attention to the fact that, actually, in cold weather, in icy weather, in snowy weather, you are more likely to fall. I would ask, in particular, those who are more frail to pay particular attention at this time of year, because the last thing we need is more pressure on our NHS at this point in time. So, thank you for...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: The NHS Wales collaborative has led the development of a 10-year women's health plan, and this will form the service's response to the requirement set out in the women and girls health quality statement. The plan will deliver improvements to health provision for women across all regions of Wales.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much. I'm very sorry to hear Emily's story; she is one of many women suffering from endometriosis. We have recognised that we need to do far more in this area, and that's why we do have endometriosis nurses in all health boards across Wales. So, improvements are being made, but we also recognise that we need more doctors who can undertake the interventions necessary for many...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much. I'm pleased to say that I have followed up on that debate, and one of the things that I've done is to hold a cancer summit meeting, where, obviously, we looked at the breakdown of where we need to make further progress in relation in particular to gynaecological cancer. We're putting pressure on health boards to make sure that they understand what are the optimum pathways,...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Well, you may have noticed that, actually, where the populations are based in Wales, it's very different from what exists in England—they have big cities; they have places that are near each other. It's much easier for them to organise separate surgical hubs. What we are doing is we're ring-fencing elective surgery, which is effectively doing the same thing. So, making sure that elective...
