Group 5: Duty to secure quality in health services — data (Amendment 38)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:13 pm on 10 March 2020.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 6:13, 10 March 2020

Thank you for that. Some of the words that I find the most slippery are words like 'intend' and 'expect', because they don't actually tell you when you're going to do something and how you're going to do it.

So, let me just remind Members: in July 2013—we're now in 2020—so, seven years ago, the Welsh Government said it would work to publish—in fact, you didn't just say it, you announced that you would work to publish surgical outcomes data in Wales at a unit level, with a promise to consider individual outcomes data at a later date. It's not been progressed; it's not been achieved. This amendment is intended to drive your Welsh Government promises forward and to remind the Minister that we've already asked to make this an urgent priority, as has already happened in NHS England.

Why is that important? Because if you knew what was happening, for example, with operations, how many are cancelled and whether that cancellation is for a clinical or non-clinical reason, from the health board and from the patient—. We have a little bit of that data, but simply not enough to understand where the pressures are or what is contributing to long waiting times, what is contributing to the bottle necks, and how we can resolve it. Seven years—still not delivered. I'm not holding my breath. If this doesn't get passed, I'm not holding my breath that we will see that data brought forward in a really timely manner, where it is useful to help us to frame or reframe the way we work in our NHS.