Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:38 pm on 13 July 2022.
Well, as you know, I'm very keen to see the development of regional surgical hubs. I am restricted by the amount of capital funding that we've been given by the UK Government—that's what's tying my hands at the moment. And let me tell you that we are already initiating these; you'll have seen yesterday that we are centralising and having one of these surgical hubs, for vascular services, in south Wales. So, it's already happening. There are lots of examples already of this happening in orthopaedic areas and in eye cataract operations. You've seen what's happened in Cardiff; there is another regional centre in Swansea. So, these already exist. Now, how many more can we do? Obviously, we're very interested in seeing how many more, but we are restricted and restrained at the moment by our capital abilities. But let me tell you that we had a discussion with the Royal College of Surgeons recently, and what they were keen for us to do, and what I've been pressing the health boards to do, is to make sure that we use the existing capacity more efficiently, and I think we've still got some headway to make on that.