Public Consultations

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:29 pm on 31 January 2018.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:29, 31 January 2018

I do recognise the points the Member raises. There's something important about the balance in what we have to do. We have to make sure that there is a genuine, proactive attempt to engage the public in consultations through a variety of different means. There's the personal conversation that takes place between people and staff, there's the written media, there are formal notices, there's having community meetings, there's all the online presence as well, and, of course, the community health councils and their role in engaging with the public too.

I'm happy to join in with what Julie James said yesterday in business questions to encourage people who have not yet taken part in the major trauma consultation to do so before that closes next week. But we also have to accept we can't force the public to take part in consultations. It's often the way that, when there's a big and a broad subject, the public aren't as likely to engage, but when there's a more specific and local proposal then, actually, you do tend to find that people engage. A good example is planning law, outside the field of health, deliberately. General conversations about planning tend not to have lots of people engaging, but a specific planning proposal in a locality almost always does. But I'm happy to say that I think that we are genuinely looking to learn and to improve. And of course, on one of the proposals that you refer to—the consultation on thoracic surgery—there was confirmation on Monday that thoracic surgery will be centralised, in accordance with a recommendation from the Royal College of Surgeons, and it will be centralised in Morriston in Swansea.