I met the Charity Manager and Trustees at the ‘Dynamic Centre for Children and Young People with Disabilities’ to discuss the pioneering work it has been doing in Wrexham for over 20 years, the rising demand for its services, its need for bigger, purpose built premises, and how, with better support, it can further reduce demand on statutory services.
During an inspiring meeting with the ‘Quay to Well Being’ group at Connah’s Quay Health Centre, we discussed their work to develop health, social and psychological support through co-production - enabling people and professionals to share power and work in equal partnership, acknowledging that everyone is an expert in their own life, everyone has something to contribute, and that enabling people to support each other builds strong, resilient communities.
I had a useful catch-up meeting with Professor Maria Hinfelaar, Vice-Chancellor of Wrexham Glyndwr University, where topics ranged from their plans to invest in student facilities to the need for our North Wales Hospitals to accept placements from their Student Nursing Programme. Currently their student nurses can only secure hospital placements in England, despite the need for them at Wrexham Maelor Hospital.
The NHS faces winter pressures across the whole of the UK, but Labour run NHS Wales, where the Labour Health Secretary apologised for cancelled operations and the Welsh Ambulance Service's Director of Operations said there had been "sustained pressure across the whole health system". By comparison with England, Wales has double the level of patients facing a delay of more than 30 minutes on arrival at hospital in an Ambulance, and double the level waiting to begin treatment.
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine described the situation in Wales as 'dire' and 'horrific', adding: ‘Despite the best efforts of all NHS staff, patient safety is being compromised daily”.
After almost 19 years of Labour Welsh Government, a series of reports over the Christmas period make worrying reading. Although unemployment in the UK as a whole remains at its lowest level since 1975, Wales is the only part of the UK where the unemployment rate has risen compared with a year ago.
Wales’ economic performance has continued to stagnate, with the value of goods and services produced per head of population (GVA) sill bottom amongst the 12 UK nations and regions, at just 72.7% of the UK average. Despite a slight improvement, Flintshire and Wrexham have seen their GVA fall from almost 100% of the UK level to 89% in 2016. On the same day these figures were published, the Labour Welsh Government published its Final Local Government Revenue Settlement for 2018/19, showing that Flintshire will receive the 19th lowest amount per head out of 22 local authorities, with Wrexham in 18th position.
If you need my help, please email mark.isherwood@assembly.wales or ring 0300 200 7217.