Speaking at and Chairing the first session of the Policy Forum for Wales Seminar on Additional Learning Needs (ALN) in Wales, I said I am “inundated with correspondence from parents whose children’s needs are not being currently met, including Autistic parents, where the autism awareness claimed by public bodies is contradicted by their continued failure to identify and meet my constituents’ communication needs as autistic people”. I also referred to the requirement that ‘anyone exercising functions under the ALN Act or its required ALN Code will need to involve children and young people at every stage of the process, with their views, wishes and feelings listened to’.
Challenging the First Minister over excessive waits for orthopaedic operations, I asked him to respond to a North Wales patient who has already been waiting nearly two years for bilateral knee replacements. In 2017-18, the median waiting time for knee surgery in Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board was 339 days, up 95 days on the previous year. Over 61% of those currently waiting for trauma and orthopaedic operations are waiting over a year.
Questioning the Health Secretary, I referred to patients in North Wales waiting over 24 weeks for an endoscopy and a Health Board paper stating that the 62-day target for patients newly diagnosed with cancer via the urgent suspected cancer route to start definitive treatment ‘is at significant risk, particularly due to the pressure on endoscopy across BCU’ (Betsi Cadwaladr). I also asked him why Welsh General Practice received the lowest share of NHS spend in the UK last year despite the rise in patient demand.
Questioning the Education Secretary, I asked her to respond to North Wales Local Medical Committee calls to re-incorporate connections with Liverpool and Manchester Medical Schools and restore the supply of new doctors into North Wales from there.
Other Assembly engagements included sponsoring and speaking at the launch of National Energy Action Cymru’s ‘Warm and Safe Homes Campaign 2018’, meeting the Equality and Human Rights Commission Wales, new Wales Vision Strategy launch, 'Celebrating nurture in Welsh schools' event, the National Federation of Women’s Institutes-Wales White Ribbon Day event, and the Cross Party Group on Shooting and Conservation, which was also attended by five Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
North Wales engagements included Chairing a meeting of the Assembly Cross Party Group on Hospices and Palliative at Nightingale House Hospice, Wrexham, Wrexham Area Civic Society Awards 2018 and Wrexham-Bidston Rail Users Association’s AGM.
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