Cwm Taf Local Health Board

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:19 pm on 9 January 2019.

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Photo of Vikki Howells Vikki Howells Labour 3:19, 9 January 2019

Thank you, Minister, for your statement today. Of course, the priority for this intervention is to ensure that the board and its staff are supported and that my constituents and other constituents can have the utmost confidence in their local health services.

Your statement highlights six areas of focus and I think this is important, as other Members have said—that it reinforces that this enhanced monitoring is only in certain areas of provision and not across the piece. How can we make sure that local people in communities like Cynon Valley, who may only be aware of the headline news, know that this does not refer to the overall quality of services? And how can we get that reassurance to people, using the NHS in Cwm Taf, and, of course, the hard-working staff who are employed there?

I welcome the comments by the chief executive of Cwm Taf that the health board is determined to work with the Welsh Government so that routine measures can be returned to as soon as possible, and I welcome your assurances on how long you expect that process to take, but could you provide any further details on the type of monitoring that will take place in the interim?

Referring back to your statement from October last year on maternity services in Cwm Taf, then you said you'd asked your officials to seek reassurance from all health boards in regard to incident reporting and escalation arrangements. In your statement today, one of the areas of focus is the quality of serious incident reporting. What initial findings have your officials found about the quality of incident reporting more generally across the Welsh NHS?

My final question relates to governance arrangements. In your statement, you note the need to provide external support in light of the relatively recent tenure of board members, and I think that's really important. I'm concerned that this type of support is only coming now after board members are already in post and concerns have been identified, so how can the Welsh Government in future best work with newly appointed board members before they take up their roles to ensure that they're all well placed to fulfil their obligations?