Respiratory Illness

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:04 pm on 23 May 2018.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:04, 23 May 2018

I'm happy to recommit ourselves to driving up standards right across respiratory conditions. We'll have more to say on that in the coming months. There's an interesting project led by a number of people about the possibility for a respiratory innovation centre, which I'm particularly excited about. There could be economic benefits as well as healthcare benefits to that. On asthma, the thing about the report provided by Asthma UK is that, given the size of the sample, I wouldn't quite agree with all of the assertions they make about the comparative nature of care being provided within different nations in the UK, but they are broadly right that we could and should improve on healthcare, both at primary care level as well as at specialist level.

We're actually in a position where virtually every general practice participates in the clinical audit for primary care for asthma and COPD. That gives us a good picture of the quality of care delivered locally and areas for improvement. And this is a key area where we're actually improving value, because a number of clinicians have actually looked at the treatments available and they choose what they think is the best value product, which isn't always the highest priced product as well. So, we'll get better value for care, and, of course, in asthma care, we've seen some of the new drugs and treatments available being made available faster here through the new treatment fund, delivering on our manifesto pledge to the people of Wales. So, we recognise we have more to go, but we have a real commitment, and I think really good reasons to be positive about our prospect of improving care outcomes here in Wales in the future.