Vaughan Gething: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome today's debate on what is a deeply emotive and important issue. The impact of losing someone to suicide is devastating and unquestionably has far-reaching effects on families, friends and communities, as Lynne Neagle set out in opening the debate, and was added to by every other Member in a different way during the course of it. I recognise, as...
Vaughan Gething: On the point about complaints, you're absolutely right, and I mentioned earlier about moving away from a defensive approach. I know, as a constituency Member, when I first arrived in this place, the response from the complaints function in Cardiff and Vale health board was very different, both in terms of the timeliness of it but also the quality of it. I absolutely think that, as a...
Vaughan Gething: It's not just a fair point, but an important one, and part of our challenge about wanting to move away from a punitive culture to a learning one is counter-balancing that with people's demands for accountability, whether at the top, or in the middle, or at the bottom of an organisation as well. So, there's a fear that people will be punished if they stick their head above the parapet—that's...
Vaughan Gething: Well, as you'd expect, when I meet the chair and the chief executive of the health board respectively, this is one of the subjects we discuss: how effectively and how rapidly the health board is responding to the improvements that are required, and indeed the level of quality and safety that is being provided in maternity services today and in the future. And as I said in my statement, and in...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the comments and the questions, and, in fact, obviously, I've met a number of Dawn Bowden's constituents at the family meetings, and a number of Dawn Bowden's constituents who work in the health service while meeting staff. The point about rebuilding trust that Dawn Bowden makes is one that I recognise. Among the constituency Members who regularly engage with the board and...
Vaughan Gething: I'll deal with some of the more substantive points, and, again, point out that I certainly haven't gone out to try to overplay the level of progress or the level of challenge that still exists, and, in the words of the panel, the health board has made good progress and the panel are cautiously optimistic about future improvement prospects. There is no suggestion at all that all is resolved,...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the list of questions. I want to start with the point about the impact on families. In terms of meeting families it's hard to understate the impact on those families, not at a single point in time, and different people are on different points in their progress, in either being able to move on or not. Of course, different people with differing responsibilities. It's one of the...
Vaughan Gething: Diolch, Llywydd. Further to my written statement yesterday, I wanted to take the opportunity to update Members on the range of actions underway to secure and sustain improvements both in maternity services and the wider quality and governance arrangements across Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board. Yesterday, I published a second update from the independent maternity services oversight...
Vaughan Gething: The Member, to be fair, has been consistent in his concern over the lived experience of autistic people and their families in his constituency and the particular concerns that he feels exist in the join-up of all of those services to help make the most positive difference for those families. I think I'm meeting shortly with a group of parents from your constituency, and I'd be happy to...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you. We're improving services through the autism strategy, and the integrated autism service is operating across Wales, including in Blaenau Gwent. We will consult on the draft statutory autism code of practice this spring and we are undertaking a demand and capacity review to ensure that services meet the needs of autistic people and their families.
Vaughan Gething: Well, actually, the good news is that we've filled all of our histopathology training places this year, but I'm aware of not just the role that histopathologists have within cancer but more broadly as well, and there is the point about retaining those people during the course of their training and afterwards as well. And it is, as I said in discussion earlier with Mark Reckless, only partly...
Vaughan Gething: This approach is set out in the cancer delivery plan, which remains in place until December of this year. This includes the pilots on rapid diagnostic centres we discussed earlier, supporting primary care referral practice and the single cancer pathway. There are also important national programmes in place to support diagnostic services, such as imaging, pathology and endoscopy.
Vaughan Gething: No, it certainly isn't the standard of service that I'd want. Obviously, I don't know all of the details, but I wouldn't describe what the Member has set out as being acceptable, and I'm sorry that any person would have that sort of experience. That's exactly why we're looking at ambulance response rates again with a short task and finish group, to look at actions to be taken sooner rather...
Vaughan Gething: We're closely working with the chief ambulance commissioner, health boards and the Welsh ambulance service to identify actions to support immediate and sustainable improvement in ambulance responsiveness. I made a written statement on this issue earlier today.
Vaughan Gething: Well, that's exactly why, in the statement that I've issued today, I set out the work that will be done to look at ambulance availability. That's about releasing ambulances into the community, but also, as I've said, it must be about further improvements to get people through the hospital and out of a hospital as well. We have been more successful than ever at keeping people in their own...
Vaughan Gething: Well, I don't think it's a question of a single department being the issue in question, but there is improvement work taking place on peer leadership and exchange between the three departments in north Wales. There's been outside intervention together as well over the course of not just last winter, but this winter, too. You'll also have seen the measures we've taken, for example, with the...
Vaughan Gething: And if you look at the challenges that exist right across the United Kingdom—[Interruption.]
Vaughan Gething: If you look at the challenges right across the United Kingdom, you'll see exactly the same pressure right across the system, both in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where each system talks and does honestly reflect the challenges that it has. I think when you look at the work that I'll be able to confirm early in this year on reforming and improving emergency care, you'll see we have...
Vaughan Gething: Performance against emergency department access targets is not where we, the public or the NHS want it to be and I have made clear my expectation with health boards of the requirement for continuous improvement. We continue to work with all stakeholders to support the delivery of a whole-system improvement.
Vaughan Gething: No, there's not just a challenge about it within one health board, but the broader improvement we know is required, in particular when it comes to joint replacement surgery, in a number of different parts of Wales. That's part of the reason why we're looking not just at the planned care improvement activity, but what that means in terms of reorganising the range of our services in hospitals,...
