Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:41 pm on 13 December 2017.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:41, 13 December 2017

Thank you for the questions. Again, part of our challenge regularly is how we reduce demand and redirect demand. There's a significant amount of work that is already ongoing, and not just the seasonal Choose Well campaign. Part of that this year is looking at My Winter Health Plan for those people who are particularly vulnerable and more likely to appear in our accident and emergency departments throughout the winter. So, actually, Age Cymru have been particularly helpful, and a range of others, in promoting the idea of having a plan for that person and their care and to understand what their care needs are. That's already proving popular in terms of people understanding how they can help people to understand their care needs in order to keep them in their normal place, but if they do need to go into a hospital setting for their care, how much more quickly they could expect to be turned around and for people to understand the information about them.

I recognise and I'm pleased to highlight the additional services we're providing through pharmacies in Wales. We made a deliberate choice on the £0.75 million in developing the Choose Well pharmacy platform—not just the common ailment scheme, but a range of others—and now over 60 per cent of pharmacies in Wales are available on the Choose Pharmacy system. Health boards are, on a regular basis, putting out information about the services available in pharmacies. The challenge always is that, in a sea of information for people to choose and understand and to make those different choices in terms of services, there won't be a single, one-off campaign to resolve all of this; it will require a constant level of information and, actually, word of mouth as people use a service successfully themselves.