3. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: NHS Winter Pressures

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:38 pm on 10 January 2023.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 3:38, 10 January 2023

Thanks very much. Well, as I say, I think we've learned lots of lessons in the past, which is why we did all that preparation work much, much earlier. And I think the situation would have been a lot worse had we not had those urgent primary care centres, had we not had the 111 service, had we not had SDEC, had we not had pharmacies helping people out, had we not had those 500 extra beds in the community. So, we did do a huge amount of preparation; the demand was much greater than we expected.

When it comes to care packages, I think it's really important, if you look at the academic and the clinical evidence, it suggests that those assessments, in terms of care packages, should be made in people's homes, not in hospitals. It's not me saying this—this is clinical evidence. And so, what's important is that people understand that this is not trying to get a problem off our system into somewhere else, it's actually better for the patient. And on top of that, let's not forget that there's a lot of flu in our hospitals at the moment. People who are old and vulnerable are in hospital, and some of them are catching flu in hospital. We need to get them out so that they don't catch flu. So, all of these things are really important.

When you talk about human rights, I think we've got to talk about the human rights of those people who are having difficulty in getting an ambulance to them. A lot of those people are old, let's not forget. The people who are calling ambulances and who are not getting the service that they should be getting within a required time are old people as well. So, there's no discrimination here. The people who are suffering mostly are older people. So, I think it's really important that people understand that this is about the risk across the whole system. And getting that balance of risk a bit more shared out across the whole system, I think, makes sense.