Priorities for the NHS in North Wales

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:17 pm on 26 November 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:17, 26 November 2019

I thank Jack Sargeant for those very important points. In answering both the questions that I've been asked this afternoon about priorities for the national health service, the first thing that I have mentioned has been the need to shift the system in the direction of prevention. If we are to prevent ill health in the Welsh population, then it is an emphasis on those things that keep people well that we will need to see in the system as a whole.

Now, how you keep people well is a combination of things that the health service itself can do through vaccination programmes, for example, a really important contribution that public health makes, but also all those other public services that Jack Sargeant made reference to. We know that the state of housing has a profound impact upon people's health. We know that being able to be in a job that you find fulfilling and allows you to pay your way in the world has an enormous impact on people's well-being. We also know that there are things that individuals can do for themselves with assistance in terms of diet, in terms of exercise, in terms of looking out for their own health and well-being, and it's only when you draw all those things together—the things that the health service can do, the things that other public services can do and the things that individuals are able to do for themselves—that we will succeed in creating a service that is not a national illness service, but a national health and well-being service of the sort that we would want to see here in Wales.