Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:31 pm on 6 February 2019.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:31, 6 February 2019

I won't rehearse the challenge about whether I'm directly running the health service in north Wales through special measures or not; we keep on coming back to this. But the reality is that the performance within emergency care in north Wales is not acceptable, and that is the direct message that the health board have had. In terms of the reasons for it, and factors within it, some of the factors are that, despite the fact that we've had better weather this winter than last winter, actually the flu season is slightly worse this winter, and, unusually, in January, there are more major incidents than minor incidents compared to last year. But, essentially, the challenge is actually about how the system in north Wales, in particular in two of our major sites, is not able to cope in the way that the rest of the country is able to, and that's complicated. It's about relationships between health and social care, it's about clinical leadership, and it's actually about leadership across the board. And there's a challenge about understanding that in other parts of Wales—there is significant pressure on our system at this time of year, which we understand—performance standards are better. So, it isn't just about saying, 'This is unacceptable, sort it out'; it is actually about working with our staff, because the worse thing I think I could do is to simply say, 'It's unacceptable and I want people to go down the road.' Actually, we need those staff within our system, their compassion and their commitment to deliver. We need to keep the staff with us whilst we understand, and they understand, together with their clinical colleagues and peers, how they can actually improve the service that they want to provide with their colleagues and for the people that they serve. It's also why the post of the unscheduled care lead, an emergency department consultant herself, is actually really important, to have that clinical credibility to deliver the improvement that all of us wish to see.