Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 9 January 2018.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:41, 9 January 2018

Well, first of all, in terms of A&E, it's not the case that the target is four hours before somebody is seen in A&E. The target is four hours until somebody is discharged or admitted from A&E, just to make that clear. He asks the question fairly: was this predictable? The answer to my mind is 'no' and I'll explain why. For example, when it came red ambulance calls, the figure for new year's eve was 54 per cent higher than new year's eve last year. Similar figures, though lower, were reported for new year's day and also for the Christmas period. Now, is that predictable? I'd argue it isn't. Nevertheless, a great deal of planning went into ensuring that the NHS was able to manage. There were great pressures. I pay tribute to staff and, of course, as I say, the situation is now stabilising. But we will be looking at why there was such a spike on new year's eve, just to give one example, compared to last year. Despite the great pressure that was placed on the health service, staff were still able to work hard to reach the targets that we had set, particularly the paramedic staff. Why it is that there was a spike like that compared with last year, it's something we'll have to look at.