Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:38 pm on 29 January 2020.
Thank you for those questions. I think there is a challenge about the service model the health board propose and that they will actively consider with stakeholders. Because one of the possible options that they set out is about reduced consultant cover, but having minor injuries provision instead. And there's a challenge about the public understanding the range of minor injuries services that are available—in my recent visit to Neath Port Talbot Hospital with David Rees, seeing an excellent nurse-led service, led by a consultant nurse, and a wide range of activity that, not that long ago, you would have expected to have been provided in a doctor-led emergency department.
So, there's a challenge about public understanding, but equally about how the health service helps people to get to the right place. And if you're in the back of an ambulance, you don't need to worry about where you're being taken, because it's the job of the service to take you to the right place for the care that you require. And it's then about how we help the public to make their own choices, if they're going to get to a hospital site themselves. But the driver for this is the change in staff and what that means for the service. And I come back again—in the medical director's paper, he points out that it is becoming increasingly unsustainable, and safe services cannot be sustained beyond the immediate short term without unacceptable risks to patient safety. And I just don't think that any politician, in any party—in or outside the Government—can ignore the direct warning that's being provided by the medical director who's got oversight of the medical provision through the health board. So, the challenge is how they take into account the points that you make now about the different questions, about the services that are provided, where they're provided and how they're provided, and, if there is to be a change on the Royal Glamorgan site, then what that means not just for the two hospitals within the same health board in Bridgend and Merthyr, but also what that means potentially in the flow down to Cardiff as well.
So, there's a challenge that is a reasonable one that is not just about the health board, and I expect them to set that out openly and transparently. And I think the engagement with staff, as well as the public, will be really important within that, because staff will have very clear views about the safety and sustainability of their service, and that often drives helpfully the way that service change should and shouldn't take place. It's not about money, it's not about political will to maintain the current services—it's actually what is the right service to be provided and how do you provide the sort of care that I want for my family and all of us want for ours and our constituents.