50% down on housing need
DAYS after I backed Welsh Conservative calls for the Labour Welsh Government to place Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in ‘special measures’, they eventually did it.
Speaking in the Assembly on the findings of the investigation into patient care on the Tawel Fan ward in the Ablett Unit at Glan Clwyd Hospital, I said that while the Health Board stated that it was alerted to serious concerns regarding patient care on this ward in December 2013, concerns about this ward actually go back a number of years.
The failures of care on the Tawel Fan Ward are not unique in Wales. In 2014, a Review into Standards of Care for Older People at ABMU Health Board’s Princess of Wales Hospital and Neath Port Talbot Hospital identified unacceptable levels of care, generating calls for a Public Inquiry, rejected by this Health Minister.
The North Wales Community Health Council has made it clear that the Welsh Health Minister is responsible for setting the policy and financial frameworks within which our Health Board has to operate.
However, past and present, whenever I have raised concerns with Welsh Health Ministers regarding Health Board provision in North Wales, the response e has been that this is a matter tter for the Health Board.
Despite UK Govern- ment action to independently investigate and act upon failures in quality of care and treatment provided by English Hospitals, the Welsh Government rejected repeated calls for an n equivalent investigaation in Wales.
Questioning the First Minister in the Assembly Chamber, I called on him to respond to “the two new reports completed by NLP Planning for the house- building industry in Wales, which confirm the link between market supply and housing market affordability, but which stated that Wales will need 11,660 new homes built a year, and that new-house building in Wales is currently 50 per cent down on what is needed, even excluding catch-up for those who’ve been waiting for the opportunity to form their own hous households and econom nomic factors.”
In his reply the First Minister denied that these figures were r representative of h housing in Wales. Given the scale of Labour’ housing supply crisis in Wales, with new ho homes registered laggin ging Scotland and every Engli English region, this is shamef shameful. E Even enaga against the Welsh Government’s 2011 household projections, there is an annual shortfall of 2,660 new homes.