Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 14 January 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:46, 14 January 2020

Well, Llywydd, any coroner's letter about the avoidance of future deaths is taken very seriously in the health service, and certainly the ambulance trust will have responded to previous such advice and is currently responding to the example that Adam Price referred to. The problem is not one that is soluble in the hands of the ambulance service alone, as those letters always make clear. It is a whole-systems issue, in which we have to be able to clear people through the whole system so that, when the system comes under pressure, as it has over the last few weeks, there is room at the front door. Because the emergency reception of patients is linked into the way that the whole system, inside the hospital and outside the hospital too, is operating. Nobody wants to see people waiting in ambulances when they could be admitted into our accident and emergency departments and treated there. That is absolutely the view of the Welsh ambulance trust. They work very closely with health boards. The health Minister works with them both to try to create the conditions in which those sorts of delays can be avoided.