5. Debate on a Member's Legislative Proposal: Health Service Management

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:33 pm on 3 July 2019.

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Photo of Helen Mary Jones Helen Mary Jones Plaid Cymru 3:33, 3 July 2019

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I only have two minutes to respond, so I can't possibly respond to every single point that people have raised. But I'm very grateful indeed for the level of support there has been across the Chamber, and I'm also grateful, actually, to the Minister for acknowledging that this is an attempt to address issues that are real and are meaningful, and for his willingness to look at more detailed proposals.

I want to touch on a couple of points that Angela Burns raised. I think the financial provision for HIW is absolutely crucial. I'm not sure that you deal with that in legislation though, though there may be some ways to do that. And I absolutely support what you say about registration involving the right to, potentially, remove somebody. But I want to challenge the Minister and say that I was very clear in my contribution that that's not where I'm starting from. What I'm starting from is empowering people to do their jobs properly, and only having to come back to them, and deal with not doing the job properly, as a last resort, as is the same for doctors, nurses, and other clinical professionals.

Nobody will be surprised to hear me say that I agree with everything that Dai has said. In the context of this Bill, I think, crucially, moving to a proper no-fault compensation system is, in the end, the only way that we will enable professionals to be able to admit mistakes and learn from them. And an equity of treatment for managers and clinical staff is crucial.

The Minister's Bill is not entirely useless, and we will, of course, seek to amend it, but it doesn't address the bulk of the concerns. I do believe we need to regulate our managers, particularly to stop them appearing, disappearing and reappearing when things have gone wrong. We will, of course, co-operate through the Bill's progress, but we need to do more.

Now, I happen to believe that we do have the ability and capacity. We have enough bright people in Wales to provide really effective management of our public services, but we're not providing them with the training and the structure to enable them to do that. I will work with Members across this Chamber to seek to move this agenda forward. We may perhaps consider, for example, a cross-party group on public service accountability that could address some of these issues.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity to raise these matters here today. Some of the feedback that's come back to me, very clearly, from, actually, managerial staff is that they are glad to know that people know that everything isn't all right and that they're taking it seriously. I look forward to co-operating on this agenda to deliver the best management and the best outcomes for patients.