Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:22 pm on 13 December 2017.
I haven't been asked to make those choices. Those are operational choices for the service to make about the right way to deploy services. If there's a choice to be made about what's a clinically appropriate thing to do, then again, that isn't something that I think I should try and step into as the Cabinet Secretary for health. We instituted a new model based on clinical evidence and advice to try and get away from the interference of politicians and targets that didn't necessarily make sense. That must also apply to how we make the best use of our staff to deliver the right response. Co-responders and community first responders are part of what makes a difference for people, in particular for those people who require an eight-minute response. So, there's something about understanding how they're properly deployed, how we use them effectively, and actually there's a piece of work again about trying to make the best use of those people and understanding where they come from—whether they're there from other public services or from the community first responders team. So, it's an area that I take an interest in, in terms of asking questions about what could and should happen, but I won't step into the space of giving direction about operational matters, or indeed matters where clinical judgment should lead the way the service uses its resources appropriately.