Healthcare Resources

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:07 pm on 13 December 2017.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:07, 13 December 2017

No, I don't think it's just specific to Cardiff and the Vale. I think there is a range of elements, both within the UK and internationally, about the requirement to shift even more to a primary care-led system, and having a shift not just in services from hospital-based to a community base, but, actually, the appropriate shift in resources to make that happen as well. We've already seen some of that taking place already within Wales—community cardiology being a good example. What I think is instructive about Canterbury is that it took determination and it took consistency. What Canterbury have achieved has taken place over a decade, and there's something there about the challenge for all of us as policymakers and decision makers, scrutineers and Government members, which is that understanding the challenge is much easier than understanding the answer and, actually, how we get there often takes time. So, the decade Canterbury have taken—. We've already made steps in Wales, not just with my immediate predecessor in the room but other health Ministers in looking to shift resources into primary care and having a much greater focus on trying to get away from the health service just equalling hospitals.

That's the path we've set ourselves. That's why I've made sure that primary care is a national focus of attention. It's why we've had a national primary care conference. But it says something about the time that Ministers are prepared to use in directing the service to say, 'This is the direction we must take in having more care closer to home', and I fully expect that the parliamentary review, when it reports early in the new year, will say more about having a primary care-led service and integration at that very local level being the path that we must take if we're going to do something about resolving our public health challenges and also providing the right quality of care in each of our communities across the country.