Rhun ap Iorwerth: I want to draw your attention to the Friends Against Scams programme, which is a National Trading Standards scheme, and it is needed because figures show that there’s been an increase of 60 per cent in this kind of fraud over the past five years. Recently, constituents of mine received a phone call from someone who claimed to be from a well-known broadband company, asking for their computer...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Very often, people link arthritis with older people, but it is something that can affect people of all ages. Wales is the only nation in the UK that doesn’t have a paediatric rheumatology service, although patients from north Wales can be treated in Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool. Does the First Minister believe that Wales should be able to offer paediatric rheumatology services?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you to everyone who is participating in this important debate this afternoon. I’m very pleased to be one of the co-sponsors of this motion. It’s no overstatement to say that obesity is one of the greatest health challenges of our age. The statistics over the past 15 years have demonstrated a very clear increase in the number of adults and children who are overweight or obese. That...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: With respect, even though I acknowledge the work that is being done in Wales to tackle smoking, when I’m talking about the successes that have happened over the past decades, I’m talking about successes that have happened on a worldwide basis as this problem has been recognised. It’s clear to me that we need to take a long-term approach, starting now, with regard to obesity too. I hope...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Minister, rather than Cabinet Secretary. Considering the cost of tackling and treating people because of conditions caused by obesity, considering the cost to the health service, however much is spent by the Government isn’t enough, and I hope that the Minister would agree with that. If somebody wants to give up smoking, there is a wide range of support available:...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you, Presiding Officer. There will be a debate held in the Chamber this afternoon on obesity, and that underlines the threat that this poses to public health in Wales. How much does the Government spend and what resources is it investing in trying to tackle and prevent obesity in Wales?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: The Minister will be aware, I’m sure, of the announcement of NatWest of its intention to close three branches on Anglesey next June in Holyhead, in Amlwch and Menai Bridge, leaving Amlwch with just one limited-opening-hours bank and no bank in the booming town of Menai Bridge. This follows a series of recent bank closures, leaving large parts of the island with no bank service. The Minister...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 4. Will the Minister make a statement on the impact of high street banking on businesses in Anglesey? OAQ(5)0090(EI)[W]
Rhun ap Iorwerth: With respect, the uncoupling, seemingly, of the interrelationship between social care and health in England has led to disastrous consequences. We cannot ignore the fact that if you stop investing in social care, the health service is what will suffer at the end of the day. That’s why we need to work towards integration. It is not through undermining one part of that which we wish to...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I’ll refer to specific elements of this budget in relation to health. The agreement, of course, represents only a part of the wider budget. In that wider budget there are some decisions relating to health and social care that we would hope Welsh Government would reconsider. We would also like more money to be given to health, but we are acutely aware that it isn’t just about the amount of...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you for giving way. Would the Member accept that the problem with a cancer treatment fund is that it ignores the fact that many other people suffer from illnesses that also require investment and innovation and so on, and that that is a barrier to one of the things that we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations? [Interruption.]
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Will you give way?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I note that patients have been contacted to put their minds at ease that the practice is not at risk of closure. But people are very, very uneasy, the length and breadth of Wales, as surgery after surgery hands back the keys or have their contracts ended. As in Ruabon, what we see in many other places is a failure to be able to recruit the adequate number of GPs to keep a practice going, and...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Plaid Cymru will be supporting this motion and the amendment. The recommendations made by the Welsh Affairs Committee are sensible ones, and I hope that Governments on both sides of the border consider them. A cross-border flow of patients is, of course, one of the facts of life across Europe, and certainly worldwide. I’m sure it often makes sense for a patient to cross a border to receive...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you, Llywydd, and I move the amendment, which concentrates on one element of the report, if truth be told. The chief medical officer’s report reminds us again that the poorest communities pay a significant price in terms of their health, simply because they are poor and live with others in poverty. There is too much focus on occasion, I think, on the lifestyle choices made by...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. We tabled this motion to give the Government an opportunity to align itself with clinical opinion, and to use the extra investment in diagnostic capacity to prioritise achieving this 28-day diagnostic target, which I haven’t plucked from the air; this has come from the people who know something about this. This could clear a bottleneck in the system and lead to...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m pleased to open this debate, which calls for a focus on achieving a target of 28 days for diagnosis for those with cancer. This is a recommendation that was made by the independent cancer taskforce, which includes some of Europe’s finest clinicians, who said: Rydym yn argymell y dylid gosod uchelgais y bydd, erbyn 2020, 95% o gleifion a...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Chair. I just want to briefly endorse the final point made by Simon Thomas. I’m grateful that this issue has been aired in the Assembly and I welcome that very much. Innovation is something that I am generally eager to see us do more of in Wales. I think there’s something about the size of Wales and the scale of Wales that makes us an ideal place to innovate in a...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: May I say that Eluned Morgan is doing a dangerous thing in starting to list companies in her region before the Member for Anglesey gets up to speak? Because I could speak at length about Melyn Môn, Y Cwt Mwg, Y Cwt Caws and Halen Môn—but I won’t do so. But the truth is, of course, that there are far too many relatively small food producers—some are larger—on Anglesey, and what I’m...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: It is well-known that survival rates of cancer are lower for those who receive a diagnosis through accident and emergency departments in hospitals. It’s also known that there is some inequality in terms of who is likely to get a diagnosis in an A&E department, and that the less wealthy are more likely to go through that process rather than going through alternative processes and getting...
