Part of 4. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:49 pm on 8 January 2020.
The first thing I want to do is to thank all the staff who are working incredibly hard to give dedicated support to those who need it and to recognise that they are completely driven to attend to the needs of their patients. I want to start there because I feel that's of importance and reassuring to those that we recognise that. I've read the e-mail from Dr Philip Banfield of BMA Cymru and the concerns that he's raised, because he's sent that, I would imagine, to a number of us. But I'm also aware of the distress that will happen for those patients who've been waiting for a procedure, whatever that procedure might be, and that people get anxious and then it is cancelled. So, I want to put on record that I recognise that; I'm sure everybody in this room does. So, what I'm interested in now is trying to move this forward, and there were a few suggestions that have come out of Dr Phil Banfield's statement. And he calls for an urgent need to expand the capacity of beds that are available as one possible solution to move people through the system. I don't know what your thoughts are on that, but I'd be interested to hear them.
I know that you've made extra capacity available in Hywel Dda, as you have across Wales, and again that is welcome news. But I think the one thing—and where I agree with Angela—is that, those people who've missed out this time on their procedures, they don't somehow get pushed back to the back of the list but they stay where they were, at the forefront. And if there's any way whatsoever that we can, in Wales, wherever that might be, bring these procedures forward or at least offer that possibility to the individuals so that they do see an end to what it is that they're hoping to resolve in their care package and their care procedure—.
So, those are the questions that I would like to know and I do understand also that there's going to be a joint meeting between yourself and the Deputy Minister for Social Services to look at moving forward perhaps more quickly and more carefully the domiciliary care challenge that we know is out there and also has been somewhat exacerbated by lots of the individuals who are working in that sector feeling unwelcome as a response of the Brexit. So, we are now even more short-staffed than we were before.