Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:42 pm on 10 March 2020.
On psychological therapies, as the Member will know, this was a report commissioned by the board itself. It will go to the board's quality and safety committee on 17 March. The Welsh Government is providing over £1 million in additional investment directly to the board to act on the recommendations of the report, which it itself commissioned. And, while there are many matters that that report highlights that the board needs to attend to, that report also pointed to many examples where there are innovative, imaginative and committed actions being taken by teams providing psychological therapies in north Wales.
And, as far as patients placed outside Wales are concerned, there is a continuing fall in the number of patients placed in that way. In 2018, 130 patients from across Wales were placed in services in England, and last year, in 2019, that had fallen to 96, and that's as a result of concerted efforts that boards across Wales are making to repatriate services and to bring patients closer to home, and I think that is exactly the right thing for them to do.
Where patients have to be placed across the border—and there will always be examples of very particular need—then we have our own assurance team that visits people in those places, that ensure that even if the service, as a whole, is under scrutiny, that the service provided to that Welsh patient is of a standard that we would be prepared to recognise. And if that is not the case—and let's not forget that in the recent example of St Andrews hospital, it was because of a visit from a Welsh inspector that concerns were raised—then we no longer place patients there and we make alternative arrangements where that is necessary.