Written Assembly Questions tabled on 29 June 2015 for answer on 6 July 2015
R - Signifies the Member has declared an interest.
W - Signifies that the question was tabled in Welsh.
(Self identifying Question no. shown in brackets)
Written Questions must be tabled at least five working days before they are to be answered. In practice, Ministers aim to answer within seven/eight days but are not bound to do so. Answers are published in the language in which they are provided, with a translation into English of responses provided in Welsh.
To ask the Minister for Education and Skills
Aled Roberts (North Wales): Will the Minister provide more detail on what the communications campaign on the Pupil Deprivation Grant has involved, which included Learning Wales, Dysg and Twitter? (WAQ68886)
Answer received on 7 July 2015
The Minister for Education and Skills (Huw Lewis):
The Welsh Government has a proactive communications plan in place to help practitioners maximise the coverage and effectiveness of their Pupil Deprivation Grant (PDG) allocations. Guidance for schools is available on the Welsh Government corporate website and Learning Wales:
http://gov.wales/topics/educationandskills/schoolshome/deprivation/pdg-and-early-years-pdg/?lang=en
http://learning.gov.wales/resources/browse-all/pdg-what-really-works/?lang=en
http://learning.gov.wales/deprivation
We use Dysg and Twitter to reach school practitioners, sending up to 10 tweets and at least 2 Dysg articles per month to raise and maintain their focus on tackling the impact of deprivation in schools, and to direct them to the guidance materials that we provide on our websites. This is clearly working as we see spikes in the number of users using the PDG resources.
We closely monitor the uptake of the PDG guidance resources. The number of users has been steadily increasing from around 1,000 per month last autumn to over 3,000 in May of this year.
Our communications strategy for tackling the impact of deprivation, and use of the PDG employs a number of additional methods:
- direct engagement with school practitioners, via school visits, focus groups, webinars, workshops and conferences;
- communications with school governors via their local authority and Governors Wales networks;
- working with stakeholders to develop a shared agenda around tackling the impacts of poverty on educational outcomes, including local authorities, regional consortia, Estyn, teaching unions, early years providers, Flying Start centres, Community First clusters, and third sector organisations;
- visits and presentations made by our Raising Attainment advocate Sir Alasdair McDonald;
- provision of professional development materials for school practitioners;
- Young Digital Researchers project to hear directly from children and young people from deprived backgrounds.
To ask the Minister for Health and Social Services
Lynne Neagle (Torfaen): What plans does the Minister have for further spot checks in older people's mental health wards that were not covered by previous spot checks? (WAQ68884)
Answer received on 7 July 2015
The Minister for Health and social Services (Mark Drakeford): The spot check programme covered almost half the older people's mental health wards in Wales. We are working with health boards to ensure issues identified in the spot checks have been dealt with and lessons learned adopted across all the relevant wards in Wales.
We have asked health boards to carry out their own spot checks of the remaining mental health wards, applying the same methodology, to check the quality and safety of the care.
Further monitoring will continue to be undertaken by Healthcare Inspectorate Wales and community health councils.
Lynne Neagle (Torfaen): Following the publication of the reports into spot checks of older people's mental health wards in Wales, what steps will the Minister take to ensure that lessons learned are applied in all older people's mental health wards in Wales? (WAQ68885)
Answer received on 7 July 2015
Mark Drakeford: The spot checks revealed areas of good and excellent practice across Wales as well as areas which required improvement. Where immediate concerns were highlighted, these were shared with health board executive directors and an immediate action plan was requested in response.
A national conference was held in March to ensure the findings, key messages and best practice were shared quickly with the NHS mental health leads and clinicians. Public Health Wales is setting up an older people's mental health community of practice so best practice and innovation can be shared across Wales. A follow up conference to report on progress will be held later this year.
In response to some of key findings from the spot checks, more than £5m a year will be invested in the NHS to provide psychiatric liaison services in hospitals and ensure daily activities are available on all older people's mental health wards.
New guidance has been issued to Welsh Health Estates to ensure that, in future, all wards are designed to be older person friendly and incorporate appropriate, evidence-based improvements.
Darren Millar (Clwyd West): What assessment has the Minister made of the percentage of newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer patients starting treatment within 62 days? (WAQ68887)
Answer received on 10 July 2015
Mark Drakeford: The percentage of newly-diagnosed pancreatic cancer patients starting treatment within 62 days is not held centrally by the Welsh Government.
Darren Millar (Clwyd West): What assessment has the Minster made of the average number of times a pancreatic cancer patient had to visit their GP before being referred to hospital compared to patients of other cancer types? (WAQ68888)
Answer received on 10 July 2015
Mark Drakeford: The Welsh Government does not collect this information centrally.
Pancreatic Cancer UK has published information about the average number of times someone with pancreatic cancer patient visits their GP before diagnosis compared to other cancers in its diagnostic manifesto for Wales.
My officials have met Pancreatic Cancer UK to discuss early diagnosis for pancreatic cancer.
Darren Millar (Clwyd West): What assessment has the Minister made of the newly published National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer Document and will there guidelines be introduced in Wales? (WAQ68889)
Answer received on 7 July 2015
Mark Drakeford: NICE issues all new guidelines directly to health boards and NHS trusts. The Welsh Government reinforces this with weekly bulletins via NHS Wales' NICE liaison group to aid dissemination through the health service.
All NICE guidelines should be considered by the health service and individual clinicians from the time they are made available.
We recognise the ambition of these guidelines to improve early diagnosis. We have launched, with Macmillan Cancer Support, a £3m programme to support primary care in cancer services. The primary care oncology programme will consider these guidelines as part of its work.
Darren Millar (Clwyd West): What assessment has the Minister made of the availability of high dependency unit beds in Wales compared to a) the rest of the UK and b) other EU countries? (WAQ68890)
Answer received on 7 July 2015
Mark Drakeford: An assessment of critical care in Wales was published last summer. It is available at:
http://gov.wales/topics/health/nhswales/plans/delivery-plan/?lang=en