4. Will the Minister make a statement on developing telemedicine? OAQ(5)0041(HWS)[W]

Yes. Our ‘Informed Health and Care’ strategy for Wales is our long-term vision for implementing new ways of delivering care by exploiting digital technologies, including telemedicine, to improve patients’ health and well-being.

Thank you. I have a question about the need for broadband providers to ensure that those who require a high standard of broadband connectivity for telemedicine needs actually receive it. I know of a community on Ynys Môn—a whole community—that are without superfast broadband. Within that community there is a family where the husband has had a diagnosis of spinocerebellar ataxia 6, which is a very rare disease as I understand it, with only about 18 people in the whole of the United Kingdom suffering with it, and which impacts his ability to speak. He’s waiting for a communication device that will help him to put words together, but you have to have good connectivity or access to the broadband service in order to be able to use it. The whole community requires broadband. I’m doing what I can to put pressure on Openreach, but what pressure can the Cabinet Secretary for health, perhaps in collaboration with the Minister for Skills and Science, bring to bear on Openreach in order to ensure that they look again at the issue given that an individual’s health is at risk?

I thank you for the question and the particular point that you raised. We recognise there’s great potential in telehealth for the future and we think it’s a good way of providing specialist services to people to make sure people get care closer to home. Often, you don’t need to travel, and that’s a big part of the advantage, and we’ve seen it in the mid Wales collaborative. On the particular point that you make, I am actually meeting the Minister for Skills and Science later today and we have a range of subjects to discuss, and broadband access will be one of them. This is something where we’ve got lots to be proud of in the way in which we’re actually rolling out broadband access right across Wales, in different communities, but understanding those areas where it’s more difficult to access is a key part of what we want to do to make sure that healthcare remains properly equitable and accessible based on need, not geographic accidents. So, these are matters that we’re keen to have a discussion about to understand what we can do to positively move things forward. If you’d like to write to me with the details of the petition, I’ll happily look at it and have that conversation with you afterwards.

Cabinet Secretary, telemedicine is an important aspect of modern healthcare, which helps to get the right treatment and the diagnosis to the right people at the right time, in the right place, but it can also, as you said, help minimise the need for patients to physically attend their GP surgeries in a remote area, or even to wash up into A&E as a last back-stop. So, could I ask him, on that theme: would he join me in welcoming the launch, only yesterday, and the new roll-out of the non-emergency 111 service in Bridgend and Neath, and agree with me that this also is part of helping the public to access the most appropriate level of care for their needs in the right time frame, and that this service should also reduce that pressure on GPs and on A&E?

Yes, I’m very happy to recognise that, and I’m glad that someone has noted the launch of the 111 service. It’s been developed on the back of what worked and what didn’t work in England as well by a project group here in Wales. I’m really pleased to recognise the real buy-in from the ambulance service trust, from secondary care, but also from GPs and primary care health professionals as well. So, we’ve got buy-in into the model that we’re running and I do think it will mean that people can get care and advice on the phone or online and make that much easier for them to access. So, I do also agree that it should mean that GPs’ time will be freed up, and it should also mean, I hope, that fewer people will arrive at A&E inappropriately when their care needs can be dealt with elsewhere. The initial roll-out is in the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg area; it’s in Bridgend and Neath, as you know, and it should then roll out to the Swansea area afterwards. So, I’m really positive about this development and I look forward to updating Members in the new year about the results and the feedback from this initial pilot, and I really think this is going to be something we can actually be really proud of and it will make a real and positive difference to communities and constituencies right across the country.

Cabinet Secretary, recent reviews of the literature have confirmed that telepsychiatry is as effective as in-person psychiatric consultations for diagnostic assessment, is at least as good for the treatment of disorders such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and may be better than in-person treatment for some groups of patients, notably children, veterans and those with agoraphobia. Has any of your 12 per cent mental health investment been used in this way?

When I look at developments for telemedicine and telehealth, I don’t simply divide it up in terms of those particular budget lines. We look at what we can do and what infrastructure we need to make sure that people can access that service. For example, in eye care, you have a particular need for cameras, whereas if you’re talking about the access to talking therapies, then it’s a different sort of influence you need, which isn’t just about the talking therapy itself. But I’m keen to understand what we can do, how quickly we can do it and how consistently we can do it to roll out effective practice. So, I’m particularly interested in this area and in others in taking telemedicine forward here in Wales.