Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:38 pm on 3 July 2019.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:38, 3 July 2019

No, I don't share the view of the outgoing chair of the Swansea Bay University Health Board. I think it's important that there is a link, and Members in this place and in committees regularly encourage, if not demand, that I and my officials, take an even greater role in holding parts of the health service to account and intervene on an even more granular level than we do presently. But certainly through the winter, there are regular conference calls with every health board about performance, particularly in the unscheduled care system. There is always going to be a balance about where you intervene and where you ask and where you scrutinise and where you leave trusted parts of the system to progress. It's part of the reason we have an escalation framework that sets out the level of confidence in different parts of our system. But on some of those big key touchstone areas of activity, where it's recognised there are real issues for patients, we do have regular conversations with the health boards, and I don't apologise for that. 

But I would say, though, as we're talking about the outgoing chair of Swansea Bay University Health Board, that during the time of his period in office as a chair, they've had some real challenges to address within the health board and he has been a part of making sure that they do address those challenges. And there is a real improvement trajectory now for Swansea Bay University Health Board and Andrew Davies has real credit to claim for having been part of doing that. We won't always see eye to eye, just as we didn't when he was rather more active in elected politics, but that's part of the business of doing a job like this—not everyone agrees with you, including people who you even share the same party with, as we all know.