North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has today criticised the Welsh Government for continuing problems in Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) over two years after the they placed the Health Board in special measures.
Speaking in this afternoon’s Welsh Conservative Debate on the Health Board, Mr Isherwood said that despite there having been “some positives since special measures”, the Health Board has registered the highest number of serious patient safety breaches in Welsh Hospitals and the worst record for patients waiting longer than 4 hours in A&E.
He also expressed concern that, with Wales having double England’s level of patients waiting for treatment, the number of BCUHB patients waiting over a year for routine surgery rose 2550% from 94 at the time of special measures to 2,491 in September 2017.
Speaking in the Chamber, he said:
“The North Wales Health Board is in special measures and overspent because Labour Welsh Government dismissed our warnings over many years.
“On each occasion, Labour Ministers dodged responsibility by instead accusing us of talking down our NHS – when we were speaking up because staff, patients and families had asked us to do so.
“The Board was put into special measures in June 2015 after an external investigation revealed that patients had suffered institutional abuse in Glan Clwyd Hospital’s Ablett Acute Mental Health Unit.
“The then Health Minister finally admitted that this decision reflected “serious and outstanding concerns about the leadership, governance and progress in the health board over some time”.
“The Health Board stated that it was alerted to serious concerns regarding patient care on the Tawel Fan Ward in the Ablett Unit in December 2013 – but concerns about this Ward went back a lot further.”
He added:
“There have been some positives since special measures. Further to my intervention on behalf of the Neuro Therapy Centre in Flintshire, where Health Board funding had fallen to just £65 per person, compared to £500 from commissioners in West Cheshire, the Health Board Chief Executive confirmed a framework on going forward.
“When I visited staff at Wrexham Maelor Hospital this summer with the Hepatitis C Trust, they told me that there were now comprehensive treatment options. They added, however, that to do what the Welsh Government required would need between 6 and 9 extra Hepatology specialist nurses across the Health Board.
“We have seen patients waiting months for pain management treatment.
“Only this afternoon the Health Board announced yet another GP Surgery closure.
“Although special measures saw some move from risk-averse complaints handling to problem solving via direct engagement with complainants, progress has stalled.
He added: “Betsi Cadwaladr is the only Health Board in Wales which does not Commission services from the Bobath Children’s Therapy Centre, which provides specialist physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy to children all over Wales who have cerebral palsy. The cost to the remainder is negligible and the saving massive.”
“Having been denied Autism assessment, the parents of several daughters have told me, ‘statutory bodies don’t understand that thinking has changed, that autism presents differently in girls’.”.
Mr Isherwood stressed that a change of approach is necessary if the Health Board is to provide patients and their families with the care and services they both need and deserve.