7. Will the First Minister provide an update on the provision of healthcare in mid Wales? OAQ52186

We continue to invest in the provision of healthcare services in mid Wales, including £6.6 million on the Llandrindod Wells County War Memorial Hospital. We will continue to work with health boards in the region to provide healthcare services that deliver the best possible outcomes for patients.

I thank the First Minister for that reply. I've seen many health service reorganisations in the course of my lifetime, and it's always a great problem bringing about change—even beneficial change. There are always going to be perceived winners and losers. The Hywel Dda university health board proposed their big NHS change, which will affect the provision of healthcare facilities throughout the Hywel Dda area. Will he agree with me that any change that does take place should not disadvantage very significant areas of population within the health board in order to benefit other parts of the area?

In particular, in Llanelli there's a proposal to downgrade the Prince Philip Hospital, which will see the provision of 24/7 acute medical services affected; adequate bed space in the highest populated area of Hywel Dda will be reduced; a specialist breast oncology unit will not be there; and also it will affect mental health services. If changes are going to be acceptable to the public at large, then they have to benefit the maximum number of people and not disadvantage them. 

There are two objectives, to my mind, to the exercise: first of all, to have the fullest possible consultation, and, secondly, to ensure that what we see, not just in Hywel Dda but across Wales, is the best, safest and most sustainable health service for the population. That is something that, as a Government, we'd want to see across Wales.

First Minister, a constituent, Mr Robert Jones, has recently informed me that he can no longer collect his prescription from the pharmacy within the building of his GP practice because of dispensing rules that have changed as a result of being brought in following the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical Services) (Wales) Regulations 2013, in spite of the fact that he has been registered at the practice for the whole of his life. It's clearly common sense, as far as I can see, for him to be able to collect his prescription from within the building where he was given the prescription, so I do find the policy difficult to comprehend when the constituent is already at their GP practice. Can you commit to looking again at this issue to see whether there is sufficient flexibility within the system—from the correspondence I've received back from the health Minister that doesn't seem to be the case—so that these regulations do not have these kinds of unintended consequences?

I'd not heard that, I have to say. The Member asked a question that, with respect, is hyperlocal. It deserves an answer, but that answer will need to come, if he gives me further details, via a letter.

It's been a delight today to welcome Elly Neville to the Assembly, and many Assembly Members have met her. She's raised nearly £160,000 now, as a six and seven-year-old, for ward 10 cancer treatment in Withybush, and I'm sure you'll join me in a minute, First Minister, hopefully, in thanking her for her efforts.

But what it really underlines, of course, is how important those services are to local communities, and how committed communities are to them. You told me last week that in the options being considered for Hywel Dda, you as a Government and you as a First Minister had no preference. Wouldn't it be better, therefore, if your own Assembly Members did not campaign for or against some of these options, but let the public have that wider consultation and then take some decisions in the cold of light of day, with good clinical evidence to date with that, and with the best evidence possible from the health Cabinet Secretary around the availability of funding also?

Firstly, I've had the pleasure of meeting Elly before, and it's wonderful to welcome her back to this building. She's done a fantastic job in raising so much money, and it's great to know that she's here. Secondly, if it were the case that no AMs were going to campaign in any way with regard to Hywel Dda's consultation, it might be a level playing field, but I suspect that's going a little bit too far in terms of what to expect. Backbench Labour AMs are free, of course, to represent their communities; that's why they are there. There are more restrictions, of course, on those in Government, naturally, but I'm sure that all AMs who live in the Hywel Dda area will make their views known as part of the consultation.