4. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services: Winter Pressures

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:30 pm on 13 February 2018.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 4:30, 13 February 2018

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I wanted to pay particular tribute to the chair of Cardiff and Vale University Local Health Board, Maria Battle, who I ran into on the corridors of the Heath hospital in the week before Christmas. She was clearly going around, every single day of the week, ensuring that all her staff were being properly looked after, and dealing with particular issues as they arose. That is real leadership. So, I join everybody else in saying how thankful we are that we have such dedicated nurses, doctors and ancillary staff who, together, provide the glue to provide the sort of care that very vulnerable people need.

The average age of people in the Heath hospital is 85. So, it's obviously very, very complicated when somebody gets admitted for a medical issue to then get them back home again, reliving their independent lives, after a medical incident. So, I'm very pleased to read about the extra rehabilitation beds that Cardiff and the Vale have laid on, because that ensures that people are actively being enabled to get back home and get on with the rest of their lives appropriately.

I'm very interested in what you mentioned about Cwm Taf having extended GP hours on the weekend, and emerging evidence that this was actually reducing the demand for A&E, because that indicates to me that people are inappropriately turning up at A&E simply because they are not able to wait to see their GP in the community.

I suppose the other two things I just wanted to mention are the importance of having 24-hour catering facilities for people who we expect to work 24 hours—we want to ensure that people still have hot food when they're working through the night; and also that we are properly looking at the weather guide in order to ensure that we know when there is going to be a spike in demand. I wondered if you could just say whether that is happening in all our health boards.