4. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to improve communication with patients within the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board area? OQ58519

The health board is in targeted intervention for communications and engagement. This means that there is direct and focused action by Welsh Government to improve communication within the health board.

Thank you, Minister. I just felt compelled to raise this with you, given that, of late, I'm being approached by many constituents who feel that, either when they or their loved ones are in hospital, they get told very little. More worryingly, of the cases that I've raised recently with the health board, only 68 per cent have been responded to within their target of 21 working days. Now, officials have explained to me that delays occur due to clinicians being unable to answer questions immediately, or it can be that medical notes have got lost or have been difficult to find. In one case, I sent a letter last November, and it was only responded to in September this year because, in the end, it went to the ombudsman. An oncologist has apologised, stating that there were some issues in locating clinical notes for that particular patient. This is not the first time that this has been raised with me; it's happening too frequently. This is wholly unacceptable, Minister.

So, what can you do to ensure that, however busy a ward is, notes are written up at the appropriate time, so that the patients themselves know exactly, or their families, but also, that when complaints go in, we're not left waiting—when we're representing these constituents—months on end because the notes haven't been written up with due diligence, and so, it just holds the complaints process up? Thank you. 

Thanks. Well, first of all, clinicians should be writing notes; they should be writing notes at the time of treatment. So, there's no excuse for that; that's a requirement. But, in terms of lost notes, I think part of the answer to this is to digitise, which is why I've spent quite a lot of my time trying to make sure that we make sure that we have a far more modern NHS, that we invest in the NHS. And we are investing more per head than England is. So, we're investing about £18 per head compared to £11.50. And that digital transformation programme will make sure that we are in a situation where we can know exactly what's going on, that the systems will speak to each other, and then, we won't have the situation where notes are lost.