3. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services: Findings of the Independent Accelerated Programme for Amber Review

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:08 pm on 6 November 2018.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:08, 6 November 2018

I agree with some of the broad narrative, even if I disagree with the conclusion that the Member reaches on some of the points. I'm sure that, with this report—. There will be an opportunity for the Government to appear before the committee to discuss it, at some point, I'm sure. I see that your neighbour isn't in the Chamber at the moment, but I'm sure that comrade Lloyd will want to have a look at the report in more detail.

I don't share your view or your statement that there’s been a spectacular failure to meet targets and that why I have this report in the first place. We actually moved to a different system on targets before your arrival in this place, and the decision that I took as the Deputy Minister. That was a challenge to recognise that we had an inappropriate target. Even if we had met the target, it would not have delivered the right care for patients. And it was a view that was widely shared within the paramedic workforce in particular; they were deeply frustrated about being required to try and hit a target regardless of the good it did for the public. So, we undertook a review; Professor McClelland undertook a review. We then made a decision to actually pilot a new clinical response model, after a proper review that actually looked at the effectiveness of the old target and came up with a possible way forward of a better way to run our system. And that’s why we have a different target. We were the first UK nation to do that, and now other UK nations are following us, but not just because we have a different target—it is a more appropriate target, and that's the point. 

When you refer to the report, about whether the targets are being pooh-poohed, if you actually look at the reference to it then actually it's looking at response times as the sole indicator of the service, and actually that's not an appropriate way to look at the way that the whole service delivers care. Again, the challenge even there is, if you only have one time-based target, even if that is an appropriate measure for that part of the service, we all know that is then used as a way to try and judge the success or otherwise of the whole service.

Just on your point about the public view, the public view about ambulance services is of course they want a timely response, but, in undertaking this independent review with assistance from the Picker Institute, the public view has come back that timeliness matters, but the right response matters more, and people are prepared to wait a slightly longer period of time for the right response. But that does not mean that people are contracting out to wait for a very, very long response in all or any circumstances; we recognise some waits are too long, and action will be taken to address them. I'm sure I'll have the joyous opportunity to be scrutinised by Members in this place or in the committee to see whether we actually manage to achieve that in the near-ish future.