Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:24 pm on 17 May 2017.
Cabinet Secretary, access to diagnostic tests and treatment is particularly important in emergency situations, so I was wondering whether you could comment on the fact that, in a recent coroner’s report following a tragic case of a lady who waited seven hours in an ambulance outside Glan Clwyd Hospital, who passed away shortly afterwards in hospital, he actually said, and I quote his report here:
It is of grave concern to me that my statutory duty requires me to report these concerns by way of regulation 28 reports on a very regular basis.’
So, this isn’t a one-off. This is something that has happened on a regular basis—’a very regular basis’, according to the coroner—outside that particular hospital. This poor woman, this 56-year-old lady, was unable to get access to the tests and treatment quickly enough that she needed to get access to, and that may or may not have resulted in and contributed to her death. Given that this is a health board that is in special measures and that you’re ultimately responsible for that health board as Cabinet Secretary, what are you doing to heed the concerns of the coroner and to make sure that these events don’t happen on ‘a very regular basis’ in the future?