Health Services

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:39 pm on 17 May 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:39, 17 May 2022

Llywydd, thank you. The Member made a number of important points before he went off the rails into cheap-shot politics, which is of course far too often the distinguishing characteristic of his party. When he was making sensible points, he referred to the pressure that services are under in Powys, and that is absolutely true. He referred to the need to repatriate services to Powys. I imagine that he has welcomed, therefore, the repatriation of wet age-related macular degeneration services, previously provided by the Wye valley trust, now available in Brecon hospital and in Llandrindod Wells hospital. He'll have welcomed the fact that endoscopy day cases, as which, again, people used to have to travel outside Powys to get those services, are now available at both of those sites.

He referred to the need to invest in our staff, and I don't disagree with him there. So, I'm sure that he will have welcomed the fact that, since 2016, under a Labour Government here in Wales, there has been a 30 per cent increase in the staff of the Powys local health board. And he refers to waiting times, and we want to see waiting times improve right across Wales, but Powys's performance for people waiting 26 weeks for treatment from the point of referral was 93.6 per cent against a 95 per cent target. How much we wish that everywhere in Wales was served in that way. There were 174 people waiting more than 36 weeks for treatment in Powys in February this year, the month for which figures were last available, and that was 702 lower than February a year ago. So, on the substantive points the Member makes, I'm sure he will recognise that the board is working very hard and successfully to reduce waiting times for patients, to bring more services into the county and to be directly provided by the LHB, and that we go on as a Government investing considerable sums of capital investment to allow buildings such as the Llandrindod Wells County War Memorial Hospital to be further adapted so that more services can be provided close to people's homes.