NHS Winter Pressures

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 4:13 pm on 16 December 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 4:13, 16 December 2020

To be fair to the Member, the hospital is actually in his constituency, although it's in Torfaen local authority. The reality is that there is a bigger critical care unit within the new Grange University Hospital, and the health board are looking to surge and provide extra provision around critical care. The key limiting factor is staff, and we come back to this difficult conundrum; if you have need at the greatest level and you have reducing staff cohorts, you can't produce more staff immediately, and then you have to decide where to deploy those staff to address the greatest level of need. And that means that you need to move staff from other areas. Those are the difficult choices that not just the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board are facing, but health boards right across Wales, and indeed in another parts of the UK. So, that is what the health board are considering doing.

I can give the Member the assurance that the health board will continue to take all of those professional judgments about how and where to deploy staff to the greatest effect, given the significant need that exists. I will continue to work with not just the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, but health boards across the country as they face those choices, and if there is a need for me to make national choices as a Minister, then I will not shirk in my duty to do so. But I think it's really important that all of us continue to take a constructive evidence-led approach, and I certainly do hope that Members across the political divide are engaging with their local NHS as they offer regular briefings to Senedd Members to understand what the picture is locally and how that is leading to them needing to make significant choices to help keep Wales safe.