Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:52 pm on 13 July 2016.
I thank the Member for the question—I’m aware of the issue, which is obviously a serious one. We do have proper commissioning arrangements for care where it’s needed for babies to travel, but the additional potential travel is an issue that we need to think about, and how we support families. I’m interested in making sure that, in the care that we do need to commission, where people will naturally need to go for services across the border in different parts of Wales, that we’re properly assured about the quality of care that is provided, but also that our families are supported when they need to go over the border for this particular specialist care, but also, with the special care that we provide within Wales, that we assure ourselves about the quality of care and the sustainability of that care as well. So, it does mean that there are difficult choices for us to make about properly concentrating the very specialist care that this does represent and making sure that people have good, quality access to the very best care, and not simply making sure that we provide lots of different services that aren’t sustainable and that don’t provide the right quality of care that I think families and babies deserve.