6. Will the First Minister make a statement on NHS improvements in north Wales? OQ55964

Llywydd, the improvement in NHS services in north Wales has been evident in the coherent and comprehensive response of the health board to the coronavirus crisis. This and other evidence of improvement underpinned the recent recommendation that the organisation should be de-escalated to targeted intervention.

First Minister, since the announcement of the de-escalation of special measures to targeted intervention, I've been contacted by many constituents who are frankly absolutely bewildered by the decision to reduce the level of intervention at that health board. You will be aware, because you put this health board into special measures, that at the time that it was put into special measures, there were serious concerns about mental health services and, indeed, its relationship with the public. It was told that it needed to reconnect with the public, regain public confidence, and sort out its mental health services, and yet here we are, over five years on, still in a situation where public confidence is very, very low, and where mental health services are still wanting. There isn't even an effective strategy to implement on mental health in order to drive those services up. Why is it that given the absence of evidence of improvement in metal health care, and indeed the absence of evidence of an improvement in the relationship with the public, in particular, that this organisation has been taken out of special measures altogether?

Well, the organisation's been taken out of special measures, Llywydd, because the tripartite system that advises the chief executive of the NHS led him to recommend to the health Minister that this was the right moment at which de-escalation should take place. That is a routine matter in the health service—health boards move up and down escalation measures. In August 2019, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board was de-escalated to routine monitoring, and in September of this year, Swansea Bay and Hywel Dda were reduced from targeted intervention to enhanced monitoring. The Member may believe that his efforts in persuading people to take a dim view of the health service in north Wales have succeeded, but it hasn't succeeded amongst everybody. Unison, I was very glad to say, issued a press release on the day that the decision was made. This decision, it said,

'is a vindication of the hard work of every single healthcare employee at Betsi, those people who have worked tirelessly to see BCUHB taken out of special measures.

And more generally, Llywydd, the population in north Wales will know that cancer services in north Wales, both the 62-day performance and the 31-day performance, are the best in the whole of Wales, that the record number of GPs recruited that I referred to in my last question come as a result of the work done in Betsi to devise the new training module that has now been scaled to the whole of Wales, all the GP trainee places filled in Wrexham, in Bangor and in Dyffryn Clwyd. Professionals have confidence in the work of that organisation, even if the Member does not.