Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:00 pm on 15 January 2020.
No, there's not just a challenge about it within one health board, but the broader improvement we know is required, in particular when it comes to joint replacement surgery, in a number of different parts of Wales. That's part of the reason why we're looking not just at the planned care improvement activity, but what that means in terms of reorganising the range of our services in hospitals, and actually finally getting to the point of understanding how we get to have a planned care system that isn't overloaded and interrupted by emergency care. So we're going to need to look again and be able to deliver some planned care activities where we don't have emergency care taking place on the same site.
Now, that's part of the challenge not just for one health board but for health boards generally. That's part of the reason why I've required health boards to look together, regionally, to plan some of those activities as well, and I fully expect to be updating Members in the course of the year on what that is likely to mean, because I want to see improvement in every part of the country, not just within one health board area.