Will the Minister explain why the Welsh Government’s £1 million investment in improving endoscopy and colonoscopy facilities at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has not resulted in improvement of the number of patients waiting over 24 weeks for diagnostic endoscopy services, and clarify what steps he will take to address this?
Despite the additional investment in endoscopy services in Betsi Cadwaladr UHB, there is a long standing capacity issue for endoscopy, primarily at the Wrexham Maelor site due to the fact the health board lost the use of the endoscopy suites in Wrexham and have had to invest in a modular build, with support from Welsh Government.
During this financial year, the health board has tried to allocate sufficient capacity to ensure everyone waiting for a diagnostic endoscopy is seen within an appropriate timescale.
Even with this additional activity as outlined in the health board papers in January 2019, the volumes of activity being undertaken remain insufficient to deliver against all the required areas and the health board has therefore made a decision to clinically prioritise capacity to March 2019 to manage the cancer and surveillance patients, reducing the clinical risk accordingly.
The health board has been challenged to further increase core capacity levels and additional solutions to year end and beyond and we have initiated Delivery Unit support to help them determine an accurate capacity and demand understanding to meet recurrent demands in future, whilst optimising existing capacity.