<p>Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople</p>

Part of 3. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:43 pm on 19 July 2017.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 2:43, 19 July 2017

I think that the parliamentary review interim report is very clear on the direction of travel, and my understanding is it has buy-in from not just the health and social care sectors, but also political buy-in in terms of that direction of travel. The question I actually asked you was: is there some kind of oversight going on to ensure that any structural reforms that are currently being undertaken or currently being proposed by health boards have got some kind of backstop review to ensure that they are going in approximately the right direction of travel? Because, like you, I do not think we can just stop everything until we have a nice fat report in our hands that we can all study.

And, of course, one of the areas that has been highly identified by all of us here, by the health boards, by the parliamentary review, is that mental health services in Wales need, to be frank, to be totally overhauled for both adults and children. I do appreciate that there is work ongoing, and, indeed, I was pleased to sponsor and chair a session arranged by the NHS Confederation in which initiatives were outlined as to what we’re going to be doing to—or what they intend to do to improve and deliver transformative change within adult and child mental health services. And it is obvious that some areas in Wales have made outstanding progress. So, again, I ask you: whilst we’re not going to wait for this report to deliver all, what will you be doing to drive and to identify those initiatives that have delivered some outstanding changes, transformative changes, to child and adult mental health care? What will you be doing to identify those and to try to ensure that they are consistently and quickly applied throughout the rest of Wales? Because this is one area where we as a nation are not doing so very well.