Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:28 pm on 10 March 2020.
Thank you, Llywydd. I would assume that these amendments are quite central to what we're discussing here today. This is a Bill that relates to quality within health and social care, and these are amendments defining exactly what we mean by quality and what we mean by the standards that we expect within our services here in Wales. There are amendments here related to prevention of ill health, there are amendments related to reducing health inequalities, and also amendments on the need to provide accessible health services through the medium of Welsh, because we believe, in those three areas, we do need very real quality, and we need high standards in what we should expect. I expect the Minister to reply to this debate by saying that standards in health and care already take account of these issues. So, let's look at some of those.
Standard 1.1, first of all, refers to preventative behaviour and deals with health inequalities, and it states that:
'People are empowered and supported to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing and carers of individuals who are unable to manage their own health and wellbeing are supported. Health services work in partnership with others to protect and improve the health and wellbeing of people and reduce health inequalities.'
Now, I don't feel that that, in and of itself, is always delivered. We may need to go further than that.
When it comes to the Welsh language, there is no particular section related to the Welsh language. What we have is a mention of the Welsh language in other parts of the standards. Standard 2.7, for example, is related to the safeguarding of children and adults at risk, and it says this:
'Priority is given to providing services that enable children and vulnerable adults to express themselves and to be cared for through the medium of the Welsh language because their care and treatment can suffer when they are not treated in their own language.'
There is also reference to the Welsh language in the standards as a means of providing equal access to everyone to services, stating that people should see that respect is shown to their cultural identity, and that they should be able to access Welsh language services without any barriers, although not everyone responsible for providing the care would be able to converse through the medium of Welsh.
But these are standards that have been in place since 2015, and I don't think that anyone could argue that every NHS institution is delivering those kinds of standards and that quality of service. I think failing to include a section specifically on the Welsh language suggests that it's not really thought of as particularly important in terms of quality, of the standards that should be expected by people. It feels like something that has been bolted on at the end.