2. Will the Minister make a statement on the recent loss of 2,763 patients from the waiting list in Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board? 360

These patients were always reported on an internal list within the health board, and their waiting times were monitored. They are now being reported on the correct referral-to-treatment or diagnostic list. Robust mechanisms are now in place to ensure the health board reports all patients correctly.

I am very pleased to hear you use the word 'now' with great emphasis twice, because I am very concerned about this news. It's yet another failing by the management of Cwm Taf, and I truly feel sorry for the hard-working front-line staff of this health board who, week after week, see the name of the health board being tainted through no fault of their own. I'm also concerned about the confidence that patients living in this health board area have in receiving the care that they so desperately need.

Now, we are aware of the ongoing full-scale review that's been taken into maternity services, and we debated that last month and I think there are some very positive movements there, but you will know from the report that it's been cited on a number of different occasions that there are cultural systemic issues that run throughout the whole of the board's operation. I'll quote directly from the report:

'it is unrealistic to expect that longstanding issues related to culture, attitudes and behaviours can be addressed within a few months.'

So, with this background in mind, I simply ask the following three questions. Will you consider ordering or do you believe that we need to have a more comprehensive review that looks at all the services that Cwm Taf offers, and not just maternity services, if there are these systemic issues at play, and this waiting list issue could be an example of yet another? What confidence, Minister, do you have that other similar losses of data are not being replicated in other health boards? I appreciate that it was on an internal list that you didn't have eyes on, and neither did anybody else. Bearing in mind that this has occurred in one, is it occurring elsewhere? And finally, could you please explain to us what methodology is in place within your department to ensure that the data you receive from all our health boards across Wales is accurate, because good data collection is absolutely essential to help you, the Government, to plan the future delivery of healthcare? In order to be able to plan that, we need that data to be right, we need it to be the truth, the absolute truth and nothing but the truth.    

I'll deal with your final two points first, because in terms of whether other data issues exist, there is regular scrutiny of reported statistics by our official statistics department within the Government, and they are absolutely scrupulous in the work that they do. And where there are any caveats to data that is received, they're published as part of the statistics report. I'm sure that you and colleagues who do scrutinise those reports when they're provided will note that those caveats are occasionally provided. It's also part of the reason, because we want official statistics for the public to be able to rely upon, that we've not been able to make progress in a number of other areas, because we want to be clear that the data is reliable. I'm under pressure in a number of other areas to make official statistics available, and I've held the line about saying they'll be available when we are certain that we're measuring the same things in the same way across the country, and that is exactly what I expect here.

Actually, what happened here was that the health board themselves asked the NHS delivery unit to validate their waiting lists. That review resulted in these people being properly added to the list. So, the health board themselves said, 'We think we may have a problem, get an external body through the Welsh Government to come in and do so.' And more than that, the delivery unit's report is available on the health board's website, so the level of transparency is there now. They've recognised that this was an issue and it's been dealt with. I don't believe there is a need for a further comprehensive review into the organisation. As you know, the status of the whole organisation has been raised to targeted intervention. If there are any further steps that are required, I will report back openly and transparently, together with advice that I'll receive from the NHS Wales chief executive, the Wales Audit Office and, of course, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales.   

This might seem like a trivial issue about a data entry error, but behind it lies consistent poor performance of even basic administrative functions. Without proper and accurate data on waiting times, we can't judge whether or not things are getting better or worse. We can't pinpoint the areas that need investment and the areas where patient safety may be at risk because of lengthening waiting times, yet poor quality of data throughout the NHS is an issue highlighted time and time again by committee report after committee report. So, how confident are you that the decisions that you make, when the data that you have shows itself to be consistently unreliable, are the right decisions?

I don't accept the premise of the Member's question that the data is consistently unreliable. We're open and we're honest about the accuracy that we have in our official statistics. Those official statistics do, of course, help to inform the choices that we make and the scrutiny we have on our services. I think a blanket attack that says, 'You can't rely on data provided by the NHS' is misplaced and it's not the way that I intend to run the health service.

Minister, while I accept that the investigation found no evidence of clinical harm and there was no indication that Cwm Taf had been deliberately trying to manipulate the figures, this does raise serious questions about the management of waiting lists, both in Cwm Taf and across all health boards. I'm sure all of us here can list examples of patients being removed from waiting lists because they didn't respond to a letter they may never have received. Minister, will you launch a wider investigation in waiting list management across all local health boards, and will you look at how technology can be used to improve the management of hospital appointments?

As I said before to Angela Burns, I don't think a comprehensive review of Cwm Taf is needed, nor indeed into waiting list management. We are, though, always looking for how to make better use of technology to help manage appointments and waiting lists within the service. Part of what I'm keen to do is to make sure that best practice across health boards is adopted and rather more uniform across our service, so people know when they have appointments and attend those appointments to make sure that we're not running a service that builds in a level of inefficiency. So, I'm always on the look-out for how we improve the service, but I'm not looking to have an unnecessary and wasteful investigation across the national health service here in Wales. 

Thank you very much. The third topical question this afternoon is to be answered by the Trefnydd, and it's Leanne Wood.