1. Will the First Minister instruct Betsi Cadawladr University Health Board to conduct a new consultation into the future of emergency vascular services in Ysbyty Gwynedd? OAQ53603

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board are making improvements to vascular services at present. These improvements were agreed after a public consultation in 2013. I do not intend to instruct the health board to conduct any new consultations on this matter.

Whilst you were at Buckingham Palace, this place heard that the health board had misled the public on the issue of downgrading the service in Bangor. Since then, a prominent member of the health board has resigned in protest—a very grave step—and yet your Government still doesn’t intend to intervene. Isn’t the truth of the matter that it’s the political agenda of the Labour Party that is responsible for favouring a hospital that is in a marginal seat, at the expense of services to patients across north Wales?

Deputy Presiding Officer, that is totally untrue. I know that the Member is reflecting what local people are telling her, but, fundamentally, what is happening here is not a matter of process, but a matter of creating new services that are sustainable for people throughout the whole of north Wales. That is why the Royal College of Surgeons and the Vascular Society support what we do. And that is why we're doing it—not for any reason other than the advice that we have received from people working in the field, people who have—.

We are doing it, Dirprwy Lywydd, because of the advice that we have received from those organisations in the best possible position to provide us with the advice we need—the royal colleges, the Vascular Society. They are the people who have explained to us the current arrangements are not sustainable. It is as a result of their advice that we will provide a service in north Wales that will be right for patients. Eighty per cent of services will continue to be delivered locally, but, when you need a specialist service, when you need a service where you need facilities and a team of people who carry out these procedures enough times during the year to have the professional accreditation that they need, to have the experience that keeps them performing at the best possible level of their professional skills, that's what people in north Wales will have as a result of these matters.

The changes will be implemented on 8 April, and that, I am sure, is the best way to deliver services for people throughout north Wales.

I would like to withdraw from any party political inferences on this very important matter, but I do endorse the calls by Siân Gwenllian for a new consultation, and the reason being that I believe there are a number of people very, very concerned about this. We've got a petition of over 5,000 signatures. I thought this was made on a clinical decision as you rightly point out. However, I'm informed quite reliably that some of the consultants are actually refusing to move. So, that surely is quite a grave issue. As Siân has rightly pointed out, such are the concerns about this issue that Bethan Russell Williams has resigned.

Now, in an open letter, Mark Polin and Gary Doherty have advised that there should be better outcomes for patients in north Wales, but note that currently out-of-hours emergency services are, in fact, provided at Ysbyty Gwynedd or Wrexham Maelor. It makes no sense at all for this decision. So, I would ask if you would consider looking at another consultation. Six years we are now down the line.

Can we come to the question, please?  

Will you reconsider and actually invest in those services at Ysbyty Gwynedd, so that those medical teams can feel confident that they can carry out emergency vascular services for those people who badly need them? 

Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm sure the Member wants the best possible services for the residents in her constituency, and that is what this change will deliver. A further delay now would simply unravel everything that has been put in place. And she will know what's been put in place: £2.3 million from the Welsh Government for a vascular hybrid theatre, and, as a result of concentrating that service on one site, the health board has been able to attract six additional consultant vascular surgeons, an additional consultant interventional radiologist, four vascular junior doctors, extra vascular specialist nurses, a dedicated 18-bed vascular ward. All of these would be put at risk if we said to all of those people who have been attracted to this new service, and it will be one of the very best services in the whole of the United Kingdom—. If they thought we were pulling the plug out of it now—those people can go to jobs anywhere they like in the United Kingdom—we would lose them to north Wales. Your constituents would not have the service that's going to be on offer to them.

I am confident, Dirprwy Lywydd, that once the new service is there, once patients see what it offers to them and to their families and others who need a specialist vascular service, patients in north Wales will appreciate it very fast. And, as we know, patients in Wales are very quickly and very powerfully attached to the new service they have, and I'm sure they will be amongst its strongest supporters.