Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:27 pm on 27 June 2018.
Well, I'm pleased to hear you say that, and, of course, the parliamentary review really recommended—well, had two key thrusts. The first was that we want the general public to begin to take more responsibility for their own health and to manage themselves in a more appropriate way, and the second thrust was that we want people to go into hospital less often, and when they're there to get out of there far more quickly, and we do have situations where people with conditions such as Parkinson's may end up staying in hospital through no fault of their own but because those regimes don't tie together.
I've witnessed first hand from my time in hospital that, actually, hospital staff can get really bowed under with all sorts of other pressures and, so, the drugs trolley doesn't quite make it down the corridor and so on and so forth. So, I really would like to ask you again to have a good look at this because we can't say on the one hand, 'Take more responsibility'—. Some people have had conditions such as Parkinson's—and, as you say, it's not the only one—for years and years and years, and they know what they need and they know when they need it. I appreciate that if you're in hospital for something entirely different there may be contraindications and so on—one always has to be really careful—but I think we can rely on the general public when they have something like this, when they will know only too well what suits them, because of course, as you will know, every individual with conditions such as Parkinson's will have a different reaction to it, will have a different set of meds, and will certainly have a different timescale. So, will you please undertake to look at this really clearly, so that we can say to people, 'We are asking you to take responsibility, we do trust you'? Above all, it's to keep them better in hospital, so that, hopefully, they can get out better from whatever reason they've gone in there.