Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 14 January 2020.
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. First Minister, I'd like to start by raising with you the case of Peter Connelly, who died in what the Welsh ambulance service trust described as 'difficult and unacceptable...circumstances'. There had been an eight-hour delay in admitting Mr Connelly to Wrexham Maelor Hospital. Following his death, the senior coroner for north Wales issued a regulation 28 report on the prevention of unnecessary deaths. It was the thirteenth such report since 2014 that highlighted long waits outside hospitals in north Wales. The coroner concluded that, unless working practices changed within the NHS in north Wales, it was inevitable that future deaths would occur that might otherwise have been preventable. That report was issued at the end of last year. This year already, a further report—making it the fourteenth in six years—into the death of Samantha Brousas identified failings in the transfer of care at Wrexham Maelor. Despite suspected sepsis and being critically ill, she was held outside the hospital in an ambulance for over two hours. As a consequence of the concerns raised by the coroner about Betsi Cadwaladr and the Wales ambulance trust, will the First Minister undertake an urgent investigation to ensure that lives are not put at risk any further?