<p>Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders</p>

Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:48 pm on 28 March 2017.

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Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 1:48, 28 March 2017

I deliberately used four out of six, because, obviously, Powys health board does not have a district general hospital within its area, and the high end of acute services is in the district general hospitals, and those seem to be the health boards that do clearly have a big deficit problem, as I’ve used Abertawe Bro Morgannwg with a projected deficit next year of £52 million. You talk about looking at governance arrangements, you talk about looking at the balance sheet next June, and I can hear from a sedentary position that I need to look across the border. The deficit position of the Welsh NHS is double—double—what the English NHS is facing. I don’t discount—[Interruption.] I do not discount the issues across the whole of the NHS in the United Kingdom, but it is not unreasonable—it is not unreasonable, people in those health board areas trying to reconcile the statement that there will be no loss of services and there will be no increase in waiting times, when you’ve got to put such downward pressure on the budgets without additional money going in. So, I do ask you again: what specific measures do you believe that you will be able to take, as you’ve identified June being a critical point, and governance arrangements, to address this shortfall? I accept the shortfall is across the United Kingdom; I’m not trying to make that political point. What I’m trying to make is the point that constituents and users of these services are not unreasonably concerned because, obviously, there is a huge issue about how these deficits will be brought back into control.