7. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services: How Digital Technology is Improving Primary Care

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:31 pm on 6 February 2018.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 6:31, 6 February 2018

And I recognise that we have real challenges in moving the health service we have today that people are used to into a different way of communicating, because there are lots of people that will expect to be able to communicate in the remote way that you have done in having an online consultation. So, a number of GPs are already able to and are investing in Skype for Business, which will allow that contact to be delivered in a different way. And I think more and more people will want to do that; there are others who will still want the rather more traditional face-to-face. So, we're asking GPs to be agile with their local healthcare team in the way in which they interact with patients and provide that care advice, treatment and support. So, investing in the architecture matters, and within that we have to make priorities and choices. So, is the investment in a hospital catering system the first priority we'd choose? I don't think it would be; I think there are other points where there is a larger impact on patient care and patient experience we would choose to invest in first. 

It comes back to the comments that I made honestly in this place and outside before about understanding our capacity to deliver some of that change, understanding the need to catch up with the way the public make choices about how they live their life already, and choosing to invest that time, energy and effort in areas that will make the biggest difference and the biggest return for the service and for the citizen as well, because the experience of people's care very much reflects on how people feel and their confidence about the quality of care they then receive as well. 

So, I recognise the challenges that you set out, and I recognise what the future could well look like in making greater use of digital. So, I don't apologise for, myself, having some restlessness over where we are, because I think it's really important to drive into our system to make clear that we can't say, actually, we can take lots and lots of time thinking and reconsidering what we're doing. But the statement today is to point out that we've made some real progress in the last three to four years. Actually, we need to make even faster progress in the next three to four years if we're going to catch up and deliver the sorts of services that people will, I think, more and more demand.

And you'll see some of that in the response to the Wales Audit Office report. The response will be provided—a full response—by the start of March I think is the timescale, but there will always be more for us to do. But today is a genuine attempt to set out progress made and to give people an assurance that we recognise there's much, much more that we need to do at a faster pace.