Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:31 pm on 29 March 2017.
The First Minister was accurately presenting the number of women who had actually been admitted into an in-patient unit in each of the last three years. And there’s an issue of genuine significance and importance here, which I don’t try to underplay at all. What we have to be able to do is understand the evidence available to us of what a genuinely sustainable and the proper quality in the service we’re able to provide. The previous service, the staff weren’t able to maintain their skills to provide the sort of high-quality service people would want.
And the challenge is not whether a single unit in itself would actually resolve all of those problems, if it was physically located within Wales. As you know, I’ve commissioned, through the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee, a review of the evidence on what is available in Wales from a need point of view, and our ability to meet that need, whether in Wales or otherwise. That review will report later in the year and, of course, I will expect to share the findings and the advice, and my response, with Members who are here today, and I’m sure will maintain an interest in it. I accept that it is, obviously, important to Members across this Chamber.