Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: The Bloody Brilliant awareness resource—
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: it doesn't translate to Welsh quite so well—
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: —also funded through the women’s health implementation group, has been widely praised, and has been accessed by people around the world. Working with clinicians, we have set up a task and finish group to look at best practice to design a new menopause care pathway for Wales. The group's work will support the four-nations menopause taskforce. We have also set up a gynaecology planned care...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you for the opportunity to make this important statement today about the publication of our quality statement on women’s and girls’ health. We’ve been working hard to improve the quality of care everyone receives in Wales and to reduce the level of variation in standards between services available in one part of Wales and another. However, there...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: for us to really tackle those waiting lists. Let me just be clear, there has been no decision on the hospital yet. I'm sitting next to the finance Minister here, and she'd have to find a hell of a lot of money. This is not straightforward at all. And, of course, as somebody who represents the area, I would not be allowed to make a decision, but let me tell you, as the person responsible for...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: So, those people who are waiting for hip operations in places like Pembrokeshire need to understand that having A&E and planned care in the same place, you're constantly being thrown out. And we've got an expert amongst us, who's an orthopaedic surgeon, who knows that that is the situation. You keep on asking us to separate things; this is an opportunity to do that—
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: In accordance with our expectations, and the policy for all health boards, Hywel Dda University Health Board is developing their six-point plan for emergency care, and this includes the whole accident and emergency care, from primary care to health services, and social care in the community, which is at the heart of our communities. The priority of the health board is to maintain safe...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. The people of Wales deserve health services that deliver the best possible outcomes for patients. We will be guided by the best and most up-to-date clinical evidence to deliver that high-quality care. Today’s debate is a subject that we’ve discussed on numerous occasions and I therefore make no apologies to Members that they will hear again why services...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: We've introduced electronic systems for patient referral and advice across Wales. And, as a result, almost 15 per cent of referrals are now managed by advising patients rather than through new appointments for in-patients. Each of these steps will begin to tackle issues that have been raised in this important report. Some people will still, I'm afraid, have to wait for too long for some time....
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Buffy Williams was asking me about cancer care, and you'll be aware that there are new rapid diagnostic centres now in every health board. The Cardiff one will be coming online later this year. Seventy-five million pounds has been provided to upgrade diagnostic capacity, including new MRI and CT equipment. Twelve million pounds has been invested for linear accelerators in Betsi Cadwaladr and...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: We have established a committed team. The national recovery director will lead the health service to ensure that our recovery programme is delivered. Every health board has been given additional funding to be used to help them to transform and to deliver locally, and some of that funding will be used to support patients on waiting lists. Now, in the eight weeks since we launched the plan,...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to reply to this important debate around the 'Waiting well?' report and waiting times. I'm very pleased that we were able to accept almost all of the recommendations, 26 out of 27. Obviously, we haven't gone into the detail in the response, but obviously there's a lot more detail in the planned care plan. Now, I published our...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you. As you’re aware, I was pleased to see, for the first time, that those waiting for two years and longer, that those lists are coming down for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. So, we’re travelling in the right direction, but, of course, we’re not travelling quickly enough. You must bear in mind in terms of the figures that we’re dealing with at the moment,...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much, Andrew. I absolutely am very aware of the fact that there are certain conditions where we have to move fast, and this is one of them, which is why what we've done is to ask clinicians to sort out priorities, to put people into categories so that we are really getting to the people who need the most urgent help fastest. Of course, what we are doing is implementing the...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch yn fawr. Llywydd, Gwyn Williams, who is our ophthalmology clinical lead, along with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, has worked with us to develop an eye care strategy, which we are now implementing. Over the past 12 months, eye care services have implemented considerable innovations to ensure that patients at risk of sight loss are seen and are treated.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: I'd like to thank the standards committee for their work and for their consideration of the standards commissioner's report. I'm aware that the role of elected representatives is to lead by example. There's an expectation on all of us to uphold the highest standards, and, throughout this process, I've accepted that I failed to do so through my actions in this case. I'd like to place on record...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: I am aware of the responsibility upon us all as Members to lead by example, and I accept that I haven't maintained the standards required of us as Members of the Senedd in this case. I want to make it clear in the Senedd today that I apologise to you all, my fellow Members, and to the people of Wales for the unfortunate situation that I have put myself in, and I wish to say that I am sorry...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much, and we certainly hope that will happen. Of course, we've already provided £2 million in order to ensure that we see a delivery in this area and, certainly, what we want to see in terms of the capacity on that board and the kinds of people we have on the board is that the new programme should take a more holistic approach to end-of-life care. We know that around 33,000...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: The end-of-life care board is currently preparing to transition into the new programme board for end-of-life care from 1 July 2022. The work programme for the new board is currently in development, and it will support a range of end-of-life care enabling plans.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much. Well, certainly I'm very eager to see 'More than just words' continuing and evolving and becoming more aggressive in terms of what we expect to see from the health boards in terms of provision. In terms of quality of care for young children and those who are monolingual Welsh speakers or more comfortable through the medium of Welsh, then, of course, the quality of care...
