2. What steps are being taken to cut waiting times at Grange University Hospital? OQ58017

Tackling the backlog of patients is a key priority for this Government. Last month, I launched the planned care recovery plan that sets out our approach to reduce waiting times in Wales so that patients get the care and treatment they deserve, supported by an additional recurrent investment of £170 million.

Thank you, Minister. I have many e-mails in my inbox, as does everyone, I'm sure, about the fact that waiting times are just becoming worryingly long now. I've also had an e-mail from a constituent recently who's a teacher and was involved recently in an accident at work, resulting in a head injury. Due to sickness and head pain, she was told to go to the Grange hospital. She arrived at the Grange hospital at 5 p.m. and left untreated at 5 a.m. the following morning. She told me that she could only describe the scene inside as chaotic: patients clearly unwell; elderly and vulnerable people waiting for over 16 hours for care; wheelchair users could not access the department safely; elderly, ill patients crammed up against toilet doors; dirty plastic cups littered and empty water dispensers; ambulances backed up in the car park unable to move their patients inside. She told me that there was a complete lack of communication in the ED and, at times, a lack of empathy for others. All this with a wait, for most genuinely ill patients, of over 12 to 14 hours.

This cannot ever be acceptable, Minister. My constituent told me that she feels that the system is clearly failing and is now becoming dangerous. The Grange hospital is clearly at breaking point. We know the challenges, but the public are fed-up with excuses. There needs to be an urgent plan and we've got to a point now where we need to be urgently updated in this Chamber regularly as to what has been achieved. The NHS staff in the Grange are working tirelessly in extremely stressful circumstances. They are incredible, but they also need to know that change is happening. This appears to be a hospital fully in crisis, and whilst everyone continues to apologise, no-one is truly listening to measured feedback from the community and, indeed, staff. 

My question—

Question, yes. Thank you.

So, Minister, what steps is this Government taking to stop this from becoming a full-blown crisis in my region, to cut extortionate waiting times, and can you commit to updating the Senedd on progress being made, going forward?

Well, thanks very much, and I'm very aware of the incredible pressure, in particular, that patients are seeing in our emergency departments. We are clearly in a situation where those pressures are boiling over at some points, and one of the things that I've been doing is making impromptu visits to some of our accident and emergency departments just to see for myself the pressure that they're under. I've already been to visit the Heath, Withybush and Morriston, where I was able to speak to people on the front line—so, not getting a filtered view of what's going on. And I think what is clear to me is that there is a massive increase in demand. And if you just look at what has happened in the Grange, we've seen a 14 per cent increase in daily attendance compared to March. That's just this month. So, that is a significant increase. So, obviously, when we're still in a situation where, let's face it, the Office for National Statistics figures are telling us that one in 25 people have still got COVID and are suffering from it, that affects the staff that are working in those emergency departments. So, that explains to some extent why the pressures is so great—because we are still living with COVID. But I can assure you that we do have plans in place. We have urgent plans, we have a six-priority-point plan, and I'm very happy to send you a copy of that if you'd like to see it, where we set out and make sure that people have an understanding that what we're talking about here is a whole-system approach that we need to address. And we will be discussing the planned care issue later on this afternoon, and obviously you're welcome to listen in on that debate.