7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Hospice and Palliative Care

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:47 pm on 20 November 2019.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 4:47, 20 November 2019

Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I'd like to thank everyone who's taken part in this debate today because, of course, it touches on a subject that will affect all of us at one point or another in our lives, whether it's, well, ourselves, obviously, our loved ones, our families, our friends. I do want to pay tribute to Mark Isherwood, because, as the chair of that cross-party group, he has really, really shown great commitment and dedication to this area, and I don't think, actually, Mark, we recognise some of the work that you do on some of these less fashionable subjects. I'm very grateful, and I know that most of the Assembly is as well.

Everyone who's spoken—I'm not going to gallop around you all, but I want to say that many of you actually referenced wonderful examples in your own constituencies, and, through you, I think we should pay a great duty of thanks to all of those organisations for the work that they do in helping people through what must be one of the greatest transitions any of us will ever make, from this life to wherever we may be going afterwards.

Minister, you did—. Actually, before I come to you, Minister, Helen Mary Jones, your contribution was absolutely spot on. We accept your amendments to our motion. You picked up on very important points—the point about supporting carers through this and, of course, the fact that there's a variety of need out there and people will want to die in a hospital, they'll want to die in their home, they'll want to die in a hospice. It's down to that individual. They have that right at the end of their life to make that choice, and you're absolutely spot on. Thank you for both of those amendments.

Minister, I was marginally enraged when I first saw the Government amendment, because I do think that, as a Government, you tend to reach for the 'delete all' pen and not look behind the politics. But you drew my sting by explaining some of why you had done that and about the fact you were trying to pull it all together in a way that reflected what you were doing here so far, and no-one is disputing that there have been efforts made, strides made, there are plans in places. I was concerned, though, that the Government deleted the bit that acknowledged 23,000 people in Wales as having a palliative care need, including 1,000 children. Now, I know you mentioned it in your speech, but I think the reason why it was very important for that to be on the face of the motion is, because unless we know that that's what the need is, and no-one really talked here about the fact that we don't have the resource in place—. You know, like other parts of the health service, we do not have enough palliative care nurses, we do not have enough people with those specialist skills to help people through a very difficult time. Because you do need to have a certain ability, to have empathy, understanding—you know, it's a bit like having specialist nurses like Macmillan for cancer sufferers; you need to have that resource in place. And I think that if we could have a view of how many more specialist people we would need with the skills and the knowledge and the experience to provide palliative care, that is key. And recognising how many people need palliative care is actually a starting point.