Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:48 pm on 27 November 2019.
Well, well, 'you can't know what you don't know'. Well, Minister, you'd had seven reports before you signed off on that plan. You'd had seven reports from different parts of the health service that were telling you that there was a crucial service and that if you put all of that bad evidence together before you get the royal college's report, you can see that there are things seriously going wrong.
I'm afraid that the Minister cannot stand here and say that he didn't know, or if he is telling us that he didn't know, then that takes us into a completely different area of competence, which is not where I want to go this afternoon.
I think the Minister must accept—and it isn't us saying this; it is Health Inspectorate Wales and the audit office—that there are systematic structural problems with the governance, and Angela Burns is helpfully giving us the page reference—page 33. There are systematic problems not just in that health board. And isn't it time for the Minister to look again—to look at what the committee's report, which we discussed yesterday, said about some of the areas that the legislation that he's proposing will not address?
Isn't it time for him to consider a single, integrated, truly independent health and care inspectorate that can look at all these issues across the board? Is it not time for him to take steps to align the health and social care complaints procedures and make sure that they're rigorous and make sure, for all those families who were ignored again, and again, and again when they raised concerns in Cwm Taf, that that will not happen again. Isn't it time for us to have truly independent whistleblowing procedures for health and care services in Wales, because if the Minister believes there is one, he's probably the only person left in this country who does.
And is it not time, when it comes to quality of leadership—and this is so important—for the proper regulation of non-clinical NHS managers, including an agreed competence framework, consistent structures for training and development, and accountability procedures on a par with those to which clinical professionals are held? Will he today look at the seriousness of these issues and consider amending the quality and engagement Bill, as the committee has requested, to address all those issues, or, better still, withdraw and rewrite it, or does he expect us to believe that everything's fine?