North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has criticised “Successive Health Ministers” who have responded to problems with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) “by burying the facts, passing the buck and bullying whistle-blowers”.
In this afternoon’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Welsh Conservatives put forward a motion of no confidence in the Labour Welsh Government’s Minister for Health and Social Services.
Speaking following the debate, Mr Isherwood said:
“In September 2021, the Health Minister told the Senedd that a piece of work to ensure that the recommendations of the 2013 Holden Report, documenting failings in a North Wales Mental Health Unit, ‘provided assurance that action was taken and remains in place against each of the recommendations of the report’. This, despite a Healthcare Inspectorate Wales Report the previous week confirming that the recommendations had not been met. Referring to this here the following February, I said “The Ministerial Code states ‘it is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to the Senedd, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead the Senedd will be expected to offer their resignation”.
“Challenging the Health Minister here three weeks ago over her decision to force the Independent Members of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board to resign, rather than focussing on the operational Executive, I quoted from the letter I sent to the Health Board in March 2022 as Chair of the Senedd's Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee, which included: ‘we were disappointed by the lack of ownership and responsibility taken by the Executive of the problems at the Board’, and, referring to various reports, including the Holden, Ockenden, HASCAS and Public Account Committee Reports: 'We are also concerned about the ongoing presence of Executives and Managers at the Health Board who were implicated in the conclusions of these reports and about their ability to deliver the internal change required'.
“The Minister told the Senedd that day that she does not have the power to dismiss Executive Members of a Health Board. However, she failed to disclose that the section on Special Measures in the Welsh Government’s own “NHS Wales Escalation and Intervention Arrangements” states: “Intervention actions by the Welsh Ministers may include suspending or removing powers and duties from individual members or all members of the NHS body’s Board”.
“The Health Board’s former Chair today stated: “In the Senedd debate on February 28 the Health Minister engaged in what can only be described as an exercise in attempting to distance herself, her government and her officials from any responsibility for seemingly anything to do with improving healthcare across Wales and particularly here in the North”, and: “A range of longstanding shortcomings and concerns were escalated formally at the start of September not just to the then CEO but also to the Minister and the Director General. Those escalations and the basis for them were simply ignored by Government”.
“I am further advised that “the advisors that the Minister is bringing in are, for the most part, the same ones that were brought in the last time”, so how do the Welsh Government think anything will improve this time round?
“I have also received a Statement on behalf of the former Independent Members of the Health Board stating their belief that the Minister ‘is setting healthcare in North Wales back a decade’ and including ‘The Minister says that she delegates the running of the Health Board to the Independent Members – this is inaccurate. Welsh Government and the Executive Team run Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, with the Board an afterthought at times’. - AND ‘through her actions, the Minister has wiped the memory of the organisation. Those who battled to see the organisation learn from past failings have been replaced’.
“Successive Health Ministers have responded to problems with this Health Board by burying the facts, passing the buck and bullying whistle-blowers, enabled by a supine media and a disengaged electorate. The honourable thing for this Health Minister to do would be to resign from this nasty, insidious Government.”