4. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services: The Long-term Plan for Health and Social Care in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:01 pm on 12 June 2018.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 4:01, 12 June 2018

You said at an earlier discussion in the Chamber that the health service either changes or it'll fall over, and that seems to me the challenge in front of us that we've all got to play our part in. And it's a really difficult job, because changing the way people do things is really complicated and many people find it difficult to adopt new ways of working.

So, I think one of the challenges facing us is how we get some of the excellent practice going on in different fields in different parts of Wales to be embraced by other people. For example, in Cardiff and the Vale, they've got this exercise and weight loss intervention that reduces people's need for surgery, and the evidence-based diet and exercise support—over three quarters of over 300 people lost weight, with an average weight loss over eight weeks of around 3 kg. I mean, that's a very substantial health gain and something that I'm sure could and should be adopted, as it's shown to work, across all the health boards. So, I was a bit bemused by Angela Burns's question, 'What will happen to local authorities or health boards who are not leading on innovation?' I think we should bypass them, because if they're not capable of leading on innovation in anything, then we have quite a struggle.

So, I suppose one of the things I'd like a bit more information on is how we're going to involve the citizen in transforming our health service, because Nick Ramsay earlier mentioned the excellent expert patients at the Breast Cancer Care launch of their report at lunch time—here are women who have had breast cancer and are now volunteering to support other women, and that makes them feel great, it makes the women who are most recently having to come to terms with this issue feel a lot more confident, having seen what can be done by others. This is exactly the sort of thing we should be replicating with expert patient programme across the piece. So, I think that's one of the challenges—I wonder how your new national executive is going to make it happen. How are they going to actually ensure that we are implementing good practice that's been properly evaluated across the piece, rather than waiting for it to somehow seam across?

I think the other thing that I really want to hear a bit more about is how we're going to empower grass-roots staff to be able to do the right thing because they understand the realm in which they're operating. It's disappointing that some district nurses have been reduced to a task and time measure, so I've been told by some of their managers, and they're simply unable to look at the whole patient, and that is the exciting thing about Buurtzorg—that we have client-centred thinking and ways of working, and the question mark, really, is whether front-line staff are going to be given that sort of opportunity to deliver person-centred care and be allowed to self-organise, and whether senior managers are going to allow them to get on with it.

Lastly, I just want to ask about something that's very important to ensuring that people aren't turning up inappropriately in hospitals. Last year, I attended a partnership meeting here in Cardiff that was identifying diversionary schemes for frequent attendance in the emergency department, the Welsh ambulance service and the police, and a key partner in that was Communities First. They provided the well-being courses, the confidence building, the Living Life to the Full courses, the people with pain workshops that the health professionals were referring these frequent attenders to. Now that Communities First has been abolished, who is going to be providing these sorts of grass-roots programmes, and how is that going to be picked up? Is it through the public services boards, or is it some other way? I'd be grateful if you can give us some indication.