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: 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...
Vaughan Gething: Well, thank you for the series of questions in there. I don’t share your optimistic assessment that if people understand there’s a test or the risk of cancer that people will undertake the test. I’m not even sure that a lot of people don’t make that choice. So, there are lots of risk factors for health outcomes that people ignore. There is often a very high awareness of health...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. Mental health is a priority area for this Government. As I said yesterday, in response to a range of questions, we will be refreshing the mental health delivery plan. That will take place this year as well, so it’s not been forgotten. And, really importantly, in undertaking both the consultation and delivering the action plan, we’ll be talking with and...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. I do wonder if you thought you were asking a question about the English system, because in Wales we have ring-fenced mental health funding, and as I said earlier, it is the biggest single area of spend within NHS Wales. I’ve seen campaigns that have taken place on an England and Wales basis, and, actually, they’re really talking about the English system. I...
Vaughan Gething: I don’t think local government provide direct mental health services, but they do provide services that have an impact on mental health and well-being. We all recognise that. For example, the conversation earlier about physical health and activity. Being physically active isn’t just a good thing for your physical health; it’s actually incredibly good for your mental health and...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for the question and for highlighting an area where we’ve made real progress over the last calendar year. Because at the high point that we reached in summer last year, we had a real challenge in understanding what could and should take place to reduce the diagnostic waiting times. We’re now in a much better place and MRI is a good example: there are a number of health...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for his second question on the area. On this, there are two points that I would make: the first is that in some of the areas on diagnostics where we have waits, it is tied up in workforce. So, there are challenges for us, for example, in training more sonographers in Wales. Where they’re currently trained, you tend to see better outcomes. For example, Swansea and west...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the third question. There’s been a clear recognition across parties and within the service for some time that to improve cancer outcomes, we need to improve access to diagnostic certainty, but what we’re not doing is actually implementing a different target on diagnostics within the cancer pathway. I’m not persuaded that that will actually help us to get where we want to...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. Our aim is to ensure that people in Pembrokeshire are provided with high-quality, compassionate health services. Our focus will be on improving patient outcomes and in doing so, we will be led by the most up-to-date clinical advice and evidence.
