Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:47 pm on 1 February 2017.
I don’t want to rehearse what Dai Lloyd, the committee Chair, has already said, but I certainly want to put on record that I agree with the comments that we’ve just heard and agree with the conclusions of this report. Of course, there are additional demands arising during the winter months, particularly, as we heard during our inquiry, in terms of the kind of health problems arising with elderly people, and children too. But what struck me more than anything during this inquiry, and in the conclusions of the report, is the degree to which winter pressures are pressures that aren’t necessarily caused by factors that are beyond the control of Government—for example the weather, or cold weather particularly—but they are pressures caused by factors that should be within the Government’s control. That’s what causes many of the problems that we see within the service. We know how important flu vaccination is, and we know that front-line staff in the health service should receive that vaccination. It’s not expensive to ensure that that happens, but we did receive clear evidence suggesting that staff in our hospitals weren’t taking up that vaccination. That’s the kind of thing that should be relatively fundamental in this area.
We also heard that preparations within the social care sector for the winter weren’t as detailed as, perhaps, they should be. I know that these benches often refer critically to the Westminster Government for failing, in the English context, to realise the value of social care within the health and social care service as a whole. But here, I think, we have an example of the Welsh Government also making a similar error of planning—yes, as is required for the NHS—but failing to simultaneously give due attention to the care system more broadly. The evidence that we as a committee heard certainly reinforces our view that there is, perhaps, a crisis facing social care, and we will be focusing on that in the Plaid Cymru debate later this afternoon.
I will quickly turn to the number of beds in our hospitals used at any particular time. Over the last two decades, there’s been a reduction in the number of beds available within the health service in Wales, and that is driven largely by ideology more than funding, if truth be told. But we as a committee heard evidence that the bed shortages have now reached a point that is causing a problem within the health service. We know that occupancy should be no more than 85 per cent or it creates problems in terms of flexibility within the system. Many have suggested to me that those who refuse to accept that concept of not going over 85 per cent are those who have supported an ideological shift towards reducing the number of beds within the health service. I do think that we need to commence a programme of ensuring that the beds are in place, and we will also cover that issue later on this afternoon in our debate.
But, as I say, I think the greatest lesson we can learn from our inquiry as a committee is that the health service is facing pressures throughout the year, and that the pressure and what happens in the winter months—the additional demands from older people and children—is something that’s going to happen next year too, and it will happen the following year. So, we should be able to make preparations, particularly given the demographic changes and the increase in chronic illness and so on. So, we know what the pressures are, we have some forewarning of that and, quite simply, we should be doing more about it.