Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 19 September 2018.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:34, 19 September 2018

Thank you for that. I can confirm that the national board has already met, and its role is to have oversight for the progress in delivering 'A Healthier Wales', rather than, effectively, providing a second decision-making course for individual regional partnership boards agreeing on bids they want to make for transformation. That will still be my officials looking at those bids and then giving me advice about whether I should or should not agree to fund the bids that are made. The reason for that is that we've issued guidance already, with the clarity about the criteria for regional partnership boards to meet in actually providing those transformative projects. And the ones that we've highlighted are that they have to be genuinely transformative—so not simply rebadging a current, existing service—and also have the potential to deliver at scale, because I'm looking for a genuine transformation across the system and not for a series of micro projects that are about more local circumstances and ultra-local leadership. I'm looking for genuine scale and scalability in what we have.

I'm looking to measure our success by the process of accountability. We have a fund that is looking at whether we have genuinely transformed where we are, whether we're meeting the headlines and meeting the targets, the 40 different targets, we have in 'A Healthier Wales' over the initial three-year period. And I know that we will be judged on that. There will be scrutiny here, there will be regular opportunities to ask me questions. But part of the challenge is that, for each of those bids to transform the service, I have to be prepared that, even on the best advice and the best service design, with people available within the health and social care field working together, it's possible that they won't all succeed or they won't all succeed in meeting all of the goals and objectives that are set against each bid to come in. It's important that I accept that at the outset, because otherwise we won't see real innovation and we won't see a real transformative approach to re-engineering our services to meet the challenges of the future.

So, for each bid, you'll see what it encompasses, you'll see the basis on which I've made my decision and you'll see something about a timescale to understand whether it's been successful or not.