<p>Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople</p>

Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:27 pm on 15 June 2016.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:27, 15 June 2016

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 increase in volume—but there is a point about the understanding of healthcare messages by us as individual citizens and the risk factors that we have, and to take up the opportunity for screening that our programmes actually provide. So, there’s a need to understand where we are now, something that Public Health Wales will look at, and we always need to review and understand where we’re succeeding, what we need to do more of and, equally, where we’re not meeting our expectations. It is something that I’ve raised with them, not just on cervical screening but also on bowel cancer, for example, as well, in terms of what more we could do. Sometimes, it’s about the test and so it’s actually about persuading people to do more to safeguard their own healthcare, now and in the future.