Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:35 pm on 27 November 2019.
Well, I think it's important to recognise that, in the reports that the Member has quoted elements from, there are also a wider range of positive reports about the activity of the health board. Trying to recast in a wholly negative light the activity of the former Cwm Taf health board is not something that I think is either fair or balanced. The honest truth has been set out, in both the recent governance review, and indeed in the joint royal colleges' report that I intervened on and commissioned. Some of the areas that the Member has referred to were actually dealt with in my statement in autumn of last year, in requiring further improvement. So, far from the Government looking askance and ignoring the issues, we have intervened, we have taken steps and measures. And I look forward to further progress being not just made by the health board, but actually the independent oversight and assurance we will get not only from the independent oversight panel, but from the work both of the Wales Audit Office and Healthcare Inspectorate Wales. And more than that, in my recent visits to meet people in maternity services, I met staff on both sites; it was an honest and an open conversation, and a much more public one. And I'll be going back to meet families before the end of the calendar year, as indeed I promised to do. I think a balanced view is the one that I took when I approved the plan, and it's still the right thing for that plan to be approved today.