Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:31 pm on 4 October 2017.
Diolch, Llywydd. Now, too many patients are still experiencing excessive waiting times for treatment, and I’d like to focus firstly on orthopaedic waiting times in Betsi Cadwaladr health board. I have a constituent who’s been clinically prioritised as needing urgent orthopaedic surgery. He has currently waited 66 weeks for this urgent treatment and isn’t expecting treatment until March next year. In a letter I received recently from the health board, I was told that some patients were having to wait over 100 weeks. And this is not acceptable by any measure. Your predecessor was faced with a similar problem in the south of Wales regarding cardiac surgery, and took the decision at that time to outsource surgery to bring those waiting lists down. Will you do the same for people in the north of Wales to address this crisis now?