8. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the availability and funding of treatment for the eye condition Keratoconus? OAQ52039

Yes. The treatment of kerataconus in adults is currently determined by health board local guidelines, which will include specialty guidelines and college guidelines and other best practice.

Cross-linking treatment was available for Welsh people who had this condition at Bristol Eye Hospital until 2015. Since then, I've had one case of an 18-year-old young woman whose eyesight was deteriorating, and she was advised that the condition was developing quickly. Her mother decided to pay for private treatment because she feared blindness. Since then, Abertawe Bro Morgannwg is providing this treatment once again. But we've experienced a situation where many people have been caught falling between these two time periods where they had no option apart from to go private. Can the Cabinet Secretary look into these cases and look at the anxiety that this caused and the possibility of repaying the costs of my constituent and others?

I'd always want to consider how—. I think you recognise that it's a rare and complex condition, and the challenge is how we provide a proper service for people in this position, even if that is commissioning a service at some distance, whether within Wales or outside. I'm actually due to have a review that's been undertaken by both the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee and Health Technology Wales. We expect that to be available in the next month or so and it will be published, which may then help that moving forward into the future, but if you want to discuss the matters around your constituent, it may be more sensible for us to exchange more correspondence, and I'm grateful for the fact that you've written to me previously. But it may be sensible for us to actually have a discussion, and maybe to have a discussion when the report is published, and we can then link that to the position of your constituent to think about their circumstances and the broader picture in this specialist service.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.