Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:44 pm on 27 September 2016.
Well, each of the other six well-being areas has got a hospital that is open for 24 hours a day. The health centre in Blaenau will be open for only 10 hours a day. That is unacceptable. The aspiration is to meet the needs of the local population and ensure that services are provided as close to patients’ homes as possible. To get to Ysbyty Gwynedd from Blaenau Ffestiniog is an 80-mile round trip, or journey, and, for a lot of elderly people, and people on low incomes, this means that the national health service is not actually free at the point of delivery to them because they have to pay to get there. Ministers, unfortunately, have declined to intervene in this case—both the current Cabinet Secretary and his predecessor, Mark Drakeford—because they say that the decision to close down local services was agreed locally, but that, of course, was Betsi Cadwaladr that agreed to do that locally. When local people were asked by means of a community referendum, nearly 100 per cent of people voted against those closures. So, I’m asking the First Minister now, will he encourage his colleague the Cabinet Secretary to personally intervene in this case?