5. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: A Healthier Wales Transformation Fund Progress Report

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:57 pm on 14 January 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 4:57, 14 January 2020

That will be measured against the evaluation process we have, and it goes back to the questions that I've answered from Angela Burns and Helen Mary Jones, and it's then about, well, is it then at a point where it can be scaled? Because part of our challenge is that each of us within our own constituencies or regions could point to things that we think work really well in a local areas, but we know that they aren't necessarily going to work somewhere else. And sometimes we meet people in our communities who we think are really inspiring, and they bring people together in a way that doesn't work just a few miles down the road. Well, that's not a systemic way to improve our health and social care system. So, it is about the scale of those projects; whether they can be scaled up to a much larger scale or whether, actually, that represents a system approach or a local approach.

There's nothing wrong with people having a local approach to work within that community. From a whole-system point of view, the new models of care we need to impalement have to be bigger and more scalable. That's why I set those parameters for the second stage, and it's also why, in response to Helen Mary Jones's questions, I've pointed out there are a range of areas where Ministers can make choices to help, encourage or require people to change. This is also about the drivers from regional partners themselves, who recognise that the system can't carry on as it is and deliver on the level and the quality and the dignity of care that all of us would expect for our own families, let alone our constituents.

So, I do think when you see the sharing of the evaluation after a whole year, I hope it'll give you some of the more detail around that. But of course, Members in their own local areas are perfectly entitled to approach their local partnership board for an update on practical progress already. I know, in some of the Cardiff areas, they're ahead in some of the seven portfolio areas that they've got than in others.

The other point that I'd just make is it's helpful to remind ourselves about the point about preventable ill health as well. It's not just about demand on the health service, but social care too. So, diet, exercise, smoking and alcohol are four big areas that we all know we can make a difference in ourselves, but it's about how we help and encourage people to do that, and actually the transformation fund itself has deliberately taken an approach that is about prevention and earlier intervention to help keep people well rather than the acute intervention when people are already acutely unwell.