Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:21 pm on 16 November 2021.
Thank you. First Minister, in addition to the chief exec, chairman, vice-chairman, seven independent members, seven executive directors, the board also pays eight pan-regional directors and 36 directors, heads and leads for the individual regions—in total, 66 directors. In spite of this top-heavy management structure, you will be aware of letters received last week by doctors working at emergency departments at Ysbyty Gwynedd, Glan Clwyd and Maelor, and they warned you and others that our medical and nursing leadership has failed to address patterns of behaviour that cripple efficiency and that have not evolved for decades.
These alarming letters underline that departments have become routinely crowded to the point where delivering even the most fundamental aspects of emergency medicine, such as rapid ambulance offload, triage, early assessment and investigations, and time-critical interventions in sepsis, stroke, cardiac care, major trauma and resuscitation are well compromised. And that's despite a current vacancy rate of 670 vacancies for front-line nurses. Given this chaos that exists within this board, will you liaise with your Minister for Health and Social Services to establish an inquiry into the management to determine whether taking them out of special measures, just before an election, was in fact the right decision?