Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:41 pm on 11 June 2019.
I'm grateful to you for raising this particular issue and, as Helen Mary Jones says, we are introducing new performance measures for eye care patients. At present, all new referrals for eye care are required to be seen within the referral-to-treatment target, and that has served the majority of new patients well. However, for most patients, the start of treatment is only the first point on their journey of required care, and there is no current target to ensure that those patients requiring ongoing follow-up care are seen in a timely manner. So, this is precisely why the Minister was concerned about the high clinical risk to those patients should their appointment be delayed, for example. And he set up a task and finish group to develop some recommendations in this area, and that group advocated the introduction of the new eye care measure regime, which combines both new and follow-up patients. And the outcome measure is the result of that work, and it's designed to account for both new and existing patients, but it is based particularly on clinical need and risk of adverse outcomes. So, hopefully it will address the kind of issues that were identified by Helen Mary.
I will say, in terms of the funding, we've allocated £3.3 million of funding to health boards to make the necessary changes in order for them to transform the eye care services and to implement the new nationally agreed pathway across Wales.