Private Healthcare

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 6 December 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:19, 6 December 2022

And while it's very difficult to hear the sort of case that the Member has outlined this afternoon, it's still important to say that, even if you take the figures that are published by the private sector themselves—and, of course, they are there to make the case for their sector—but if you take their own figures on the use of the private sector in Wales, then, in planned care, 5 per cent of planned care in Wales is provided by the private sector; 95 per cent of it continues to be provided by the NHS. If you take into account the fact that half of operations in Wales are carried out as a result of emergency admission rather than planned admission, that falls to 2 per cent of people in Wales receiving their care through the private sector. And if you begin to take into account things like out-patient appointments, then actually, the fraction of care that is provided by the private sector in Wales falls to less than 1 per cent. So, while I'm always sorry to hear of anybody who has felt obliged to seek treatment outside the Welsh NHS, the global picture continues to show that people in Wales, quite rightly, are able to rely on the NHS to meet their needs, and that it does so for thousands and thousands and thousands of people across Wales every single week.