Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:46 pm on 27 November 2019.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:46, 27 November 2019

Well, there's a range of questions in there, and, of course, I said before, you can't know what you don't know when you're making choices. I took measures to intervene in the health board once the report had been received and I then promptly published it. So, the intervention shows that we did act when the level of concern was there to do so. And indeed, putting in place an interim chief executive—that was an action that was fostered from the Government here as well. So, we've hardly been stand-off when it comes to the health board. And I don't think it is fair to put words into the mouth of HIW and the Wales Audit Office, in terms of saying that I or my officials were measuring or looking at the wrong thing.

If you look at the system reviews that have taken place within the national health service here in Wales, both before this term or at the start of this term with the parliamentary review, no-one has come up and said that there is a fundamental problem in the governance and structure of the health service here in Wales. Our challenge is how we make our structures work and how we hold each other to account in the different parts that are executive teams, independent members and, of course, in the scrutiny that I regularly face here as well. 

Now, ultimately, it will be revealed in the outcomes for people and in the facts and figures about what our health service continues to deliver. It is entirely possible to be a high-performing organisation and to get some things wrong. Our challenge is to recognise the scale of what needs to improve within Cwm Taf Morgannwg and to be open about whether that has happened or not and, if not, what further steps need to take place.