6. Will the First Minister outline the Welsh Government's priorities for the NHS in south-east Wales? OAQ54811

I thank the Member for that. Amongst our immediate priorities for the NHS in South Wales East is the completion of the £350 million investment in the 470-bed Grange University Hospital. It will provide specialist acute and critical illness services for over 600,000 people in the south-east of Wales.

Thank you, First Minister. A constituent of mine recently contacted me with serious concerns about the way that Cwm Taf health board has been dealing with his case. Now, he was given an operation around a decade ago to remove a malignant melanoma, which was, thankfully, successful, but he was told he would need yearly check-ups for the rest of his life to monitor the situation. He's since developed freckles on his eyes, which are benign, but they could turn cancerous, and, obviously, owing to his medical history, it's even more important that he would receive yearly check-ups.

Recently his requests for an appointment from Cwm Taf have been rebuffed on numerous occasions and it all come to a head when he received a letter from a private health company, called Community Health and Eye Care, acting on behalf of the health board, who told him that he did not require further appointments with a consultant, and that, if he wished, he could see an optician every now and again instead. Now, my constituent then contacted his consultant directly, who was adamant that he did indeed need early check-ups with a consultant. First Minister, could you tell us what Community Health and Eye Care's relationship is with Cwm Taf health board, and do you agree with me that it would be completely unacceptable for a Welsh health board to employ a private company to cut waiting lists by denying patients appointments that they need for health reasons?

Llywydd, I'm not familiar with the details, of course, of the individual case, and, as Cwm Taf is not in South Wales East, I haven't come prepared with all the details to answer the question this afternoon. But what I do know is that the Minister has recently reformed the way in which ophthalmology services are—[Interruption.] I'm so sorry, I can't hear the—

I'll ask the First Minister to continue answering the question.

I do know in general—I'm trying to be as helpful as I can to the Member in her question—that the Minister has reformed the way in which ophthalmology services are provided in Wales to make sure that follow-up appointments are treated just as first appointments would have been in the previous system, because we know that 90 per cent of follow-up patients are likely to need the sort of ongoing care to which Delyth Jewell referred in the individual case that she has identified this afternoon. 

It is very important that we make maximum use of the very skilled individuals who we have practising ophthalmology in the community. We have an underused resource. We've known this for a number of years—that people are sent to hospital for appointments when those conditions could just as equally clinically be attended to by our highly trained opticians who operate on the high street.

So, our policy is to maximise the use of community services, so that people who need a consultant-led service are able to get it more rapidly because they're not waiting behind people who could equally easily and more conveniently have received the care they need in the community. I'm very willing to look at the individual case to see whether those principles have been properly applied in that case, but that is the underlying approach that the Welsh Government brings to these services.