Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 30 January 2018.
I would argue that it is increasing the role of privatisation. There's another form of creeping privatisation going on that I can point you to. Are you aware that under your watch there are plans to privatise more dialysis services in the north of Wales? And we're not talking here about the contracting of a company to do a particular job of work, say, tackling a backlog of elective surgery; we're talking about outsourcing core NHS services to a private company. Figures seen by Plaid Cymru suggest that the saving will be around £700,000, and much of that saving, it seems, will come from staff entitlements to sickness pay, to holiday pay and pensions. You must agree that that is creeping NHS privatisation.