Following the publication of a new special measures framework for the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, Clwyd West MS Darren Millar has called for complaint levels to be factored into this framework.
 
The Welsh Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care announced the framework, which outlines the criteria that the Health Board must meet before special measures can be lifted, on July 12.

The troubled Health Board has been in special measures, the highest level of Government intervention in the Welsh NHS, since February 2023, though it had also previously spent June 2015 - November 2020 under the same arrangements.
 
Speaking in the Senedd’s Business Statement and Announcement earlier this week, Darren said:
 
“Complaints can be a very useful tool for identifying problems and whether things are actually being addressed.
 
“The Health Board needs to get a grip of complaints, make sure it learns from them, and that needs to be triangulated into the decision-making processes that the Cabinet Secretary is responsible for.”
 
Darren also highlighted the disparity in service between managed practice and general practices surgeries in his contribution:
 
“We have a bit of a postcode lottery in North Wales, with a number of practices that are now managed practices, rather than run under general practice contracts, and the services in those practices seem to be far worse than in other local surgeries.”
 
“For example, simple and straightforward vaccinations are not available in the practice in Colwyn Bay, in the West End Medical Centre, in my own constituency, but they are elsewhere.”
 
In response, the Welsh Government’s Trefnydd said:
 
“This is a really constructive question, I think, in terms of how we can bring the de-escalation intervention framework to more of a citizen-patient understanding of impacts.”
 
“The Cabinet Secretary, I'm sure, will be prepared to address this, particularly relating, of course, to the statements that have been made by Betsi Cadwaladr.”