10. Plaid Cymru Debate: Access to Health Services

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:25 pm on 6 November 2019.

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Photo of Helen Mary Jones Helen Mary Jones Plaid Cymru 5:25, 6 November 2019

I'm grateful to the Deputy Presiding Officer and to all Members who have contributed to this debate. I have very little time. The Deputy Presiding Officer has been kind enough to say she'll be generous, but I know better than to push my luck.

I'm grateful to Angela Burns for her support and we will be supporting her amendments 3, 4 and 5. She rightly highlights the increased demand, but that increased demand is not entirely unpredictable. We need to be able to look at the likely demand and to plan, and we're not doing that effectively yet.

Caroline Jones was right to highlight what the BMA have told us. I don't share her view that directly managed practices can't be successful. They're often more expensive because they're serving poorer areas with higher levels of need, but she's absolutely right to say that the current model isn't sustainable and that action is urgently needed. We won't be supporting her amendment 2, more or less for the same reasons as Angela Burns gave, because 10 per cent may or may not be the right figure. It may not be enough. It may be that we need more. It may be that at some point we can spend less. But I fully accept that the amendment is offered in the right spirit.

Siân Gwenllian rightly highlights particular concerns in her own area and talks about equal access, equal access not only geographically, but as we heard in my exchanges with Huw Irranca-Davies, around the need for the right services for people who find it more difficult, for poorer communities. It's very interesting she mentions the final arrival of the clinical school in the north, which was, of course, another thing that was promised in Labour's 2003 manifesto. I don't think we would have it by now if it hadn't been for the pressure from Siân and her colleagues, and we're still waiting for the clinical school in Gwent—a challenge we might offer to those Members who represent that area. 

Jenny Rathbone is absolutely right to talk about the issues of inconsistency of access and I share some of the concerns she raises about Brexit. Also, some of the comments she made were similar to those of Huw Irranca-Davies, and, in that context, I look forward to them supporting the motion and rejecting the amendment because the amendment is, I'm afraid, the usual self-congratulatory nonsense from the Government. Why will they not just oppose our motions if they don't agree with them? The Minister says things like he is not complacent, and then he speaks as if he is. He talks about there being specific challenges and that we will recognise them and meet them. Well, Deputy Presiding Officer, we've been waiting 20 years for his party to meet them and his manifesto of 2003 identifies those challenges, sets out things that should have been done to sort them out, and he cannot wash his hands and pretend that it isn't a matter for him. His party has had this time. He says he's not complacent; well, that isn't how it feels from where we're standing, and I notice that there are some of his colleagues on his own backbenches who may not be very happy either.

In the end, this is not about problems in one or two places. This is not about problems of access in certain communities. It is something that all of us across this Chamber—and Labour Members have mentioned it today—recognise is affecting their constituencies. Twenty years on, it isn't good enough. He should either get on with it or get out of the way.