3. Will the Minister make a statement on the performance of Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board? OAQ53131

Thank you for the question. Performance is improving across a number of key areas. Progress has been made in cancer waits, diagnostics and referral-to-treatment times. ABMU has received £8.3 million out of a performance fund that I created for this financial year. We expect to see further improvements by the end of March 2019.

Minister, it's highly concerning for patients in south-west Wales that ABMU health board has been under the Welsh Government's targeted intervention status since September 2016. Concerns remain around specific elements of performance that are failing to be met, and people understandably want to see improvements. As the health board is now in the process of completing its organisational strategy, clinical services plan and the three-year integrated plan 2019-22, can you update the Chamber on recent discussions that your officials have had with ABMU health board and when you would expect to make a decision on the sign-off of the three-year integrated plan?

Well, the first point is that I'd need to see that integrated plan delivered and provided. There is a regular source of not just correspondence, but direct meetings between officials within the Government and the health board, and actually the improvement that I refer to is, I think, a positive in terms of the job that Tracy Myhill, the chief executive, and her team are doing with the board. There is real improvement and it's being sustained. The challenge will be whether they're able to give enough confidence—not just their plan on paper, but the confidence they will be able to deliver. That is part of the point. There are many people who write great-looking plans in very many aspects of life, but we need confidence they can actually deliver against that. They may be in a position to have an approved three-year integrated plan at the start of the next financial year. Even if they don't, I am confident that this health board will continue to make strides forward over the next year and I believe that you and other residents of the health board area can have greater confidence about the ability of the board to deliver against its plans and its financial means, but also, of course, delivering high-quality care for people across the region.

Could I turn to the performance of ABMU in respect of one of their prime assets, which is Maesteg Community Hospital? There's a plaque in the hospital with my name on it; it celebrated its hundredth anniversary only a few years ago. I intend, with the sustenance of our national health service and breakthroughs and innovation in health, to be there when it celebrates its second hundredth year as well. I'm going to be as old as Job.

But, can I say, there was a massive, packed-out meeting on 14 November in Maesteg town hall. It was very well attended, very passionate, and eloquent speeches were made by local people in the consultation on the closure of the Maesteg Community Hospital day unit. Now, alongside that closure of that day unit and the proposal to transfer it to Bridgend Princess of Wales, there is also enhancement of services being proposed, including a doppler service, a leg unit, alongside the wound clinic and other services that are there now, and including the step-down ward that they currently have, with beds in the ward there.

Now, what I'm seeking from ABMU, but also as it transfers to Cwm Taf, imminently, is that the long-term future of Maesteg Community Hospital is guaranteed. It is an essential part of the 'A Healthier Wales' approach in terms of services closer to the community. I will shortly be meeting with the chair of Cwm Taf to make sure that this isn't the case, but could I ask the Minister, please, in your meetings both with ABMU chair and chief executive and with Cwm Taf chair and chief executive to make that same point: that no matter the reconfiguration, the services here should be enhanced in line with 'A Healthier Wales', and the future of Maesteg Community Hospital should be written in stone outside, if not next to the plaque with my name on it?

Well, I applaud the Member's ambition to be around for the second centenary. I'm not sure I'd make such a pledge or ambitious statement myself.

I recognise the points the Member makes and about services that are changing, which is, obviously, a cause for concern for the local population as services move, and at the same time seeing, on the other hand, services move into that setting as well. But that is part of the challenge we've set out in 'A Healthier Wales'—how we move around some services to be more concentrated in fewer settings, and at the same time to have more services then going out into community settings to be delivered more closely to home.  So, I think there's nothing inconsistent with what you've set out.

I don't think that the boundary change should have any difference in terms of the longer term future of the hospital, and I would be happy to make sure that, when I do meet Cwm Taf health board, as I'm sure to in the near future, I raise the fact that you've got those concerns and you'll be wanting an answer direct from the health board too.