NHS Historical Complaints

Part of 4. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:29 pm on 31 January 2023.

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Photo of Darren Millar Darren Millar Conservative 3:29, 31 January 2023

Minister, many people in north Wales will, of course, be very concerned to have read today's vascular report into the services provided by the Betsi Cadwaladr health board, and especially to learn that the coroner was not fully informed of four patient deaths from the 47 cases that were reviewed. Historical cases, of course—some of them going back as far as 2014, right up until 2021. Now, it begs the question as to how many other deaths, both in the vascular service and in other clinical disciplines, may not have been appropriately referred to the coroner for consideration. And of course, we read in that report also of the chaotic patient record keeping—and this is in spite of other reports having identified this as a problem over many years—along with a failure to fully implement the recommendations from previous scathing reports. It's alarming, Minister, and people want to know what action the Welsh Government is going to take to make sure that lessons are learned when things go wrong, and that rapid action is taken and is followed up in terms of the implementation of recommendations.