Hospital Reorganisation

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:14 pm on 23 May 2018.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:14, 23 May 2018

I do recognise the point the Member is making, and of course, in addition to the traditional paper consultation exercise, there is the challenge of having drop-in sessions, which they've decided to run, where they've got extra sessions that they're putting on through the rest of the consultation period, which doesn't close till, I think, the second week of July. And there's a challenge about whether they will attend public meetings or not. I would expect that there will be members of the public who are also members of the health service who are engaged in those meetings in order to provide a clinical view on it.

What I do recognise is that in social media, and in terms of social media use, they have got a range of clinicians talking about the proposals. I don't think I'll be asking Hywel Dda to write to every household. Part of the challenge is about what you do and how far you go. The cost in actually requiring every consultation to go out, and the return on that, I'm not sure is a sensible one, but I do recognise that they need to take up opportunities to recognise where people aren't being properly reached. I don't think anyone could pretend that there's a low public profile about changes to healthcare proposals in west Wales, but I'm more than happy to sit down with you, if there are specific proposals, to try and look at what could be done to improve the way in which the health service engages with the public and to ensure that Hywel Dda takes up every reasonable opportunity to engage with the public.