"Hywel Dda University Health Board is currently consulting on its New Hospital Site with respect to a new planned and urgent care hospital.
This will see a severe downgrading of services in Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen, which residents are strongly opposed to.
Assuming Carmarthenshire County Council has made representations to Hywel Dda University Health Board on the consultation, which of the three proposed sites- St Clears, Whitland Spring Gardens or Whitland Ty Newydd- is the Council's preferred option?"
Minutes:
"Hywel Dda University Health Board is currently consulting on its New Hospital Site with respect to a new planned and urgent care hospital. This will see a severe downgrading of services in Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen, which residents are strongly opposed to. Assuming Carmarthenshire County Council has made representations to Hywel Dda University Health Board on the consultation, which of the three proposed sites- St Clears, Whitland Spring Gardens or Whitland Ty Newydd- is the Council's preferred option?"
Response by Councillor. Darren Price, Leader of the Council:-
‘’Thank you for the question. First of all you’ll be aware of statements that have been made over a number of years by members of this Council in terms of the importance of Glangwili to Carmarthenshire, and our position has not changed in that sense - we see Glangwili as having a central role in delivering healthcare to the people of Carmarthenshire going forward. I do, however question the rationale behind your question, it seems rather pointless, in the sense that as you’re fully aware, the Health Board is the decision making body on this so I do wonder why you’re asking the County Council for their opinion on the sites that are being put forward. I feel the question is shallow and lacks depth because frankly there are far greater challenges facing health and social care in this part of the world, as indeed the rest of the United Kingdom. There is no mention in the question in terms of the importance of the transfer of care from acute to community settings – that is absolutely fundamental and it is something that as a Council we have been pressing the Health Board on for a number of years and we think it’s absolutely central to any vision of health and social care moving forward. It doesn’t touch on the importance of public health and the preventative agenda which is absolutely important, again as we look to develop the system in future years. And it mentions nothing around the recruitment and retention which is the major issue facing the Hywel Dda Health Board, as it is for other Health Boards around the UK. As you’re aware, the UK Conservative Government has presided over 10 years of cuts to public services which means that a number of our health services are on the brink of collapse. There has been a spectacular failure to invest in both assets and people in the health service, as has been the case across the rest of the public sector over that decade. The impact on the health services is that we have people dying across the UK, avoidable deaths; people dying on trolleys in A&E, or worse still stuck at home because an ambulance has failed to get to them. That is the record of ten years of austerity, - and we wonder why the health service is in such a mess?. If we want to increase and improve services in any walk of life, we have to be prepared to invest in them. That hasn’t happened over the past decade and quite frankly a question asking us, as the Council, whether we think a proposed potential hospital is better sited 5 miles to the East or West – St Clears or Whiltand - quite frankly misses the point spectacularly. I would add it grates on me a little that we have local Conservative party members here presenting themselves as defenders of the health services and defenders of public services per se, when your party’s record over the last 10 years shows that you are nothing of the sort. To refer to your question in terms of the siting, this Council has not made representations to the Health Board formally in terms of the 3 options, but elected members will have an opportunity on the 4th May 2023 to have a direct conversation and to make any representations to the Health Board in a specially arranged session. This isn’t the first one, we’ve had discussions with the Health Board over a number of years as these plans have developed, and in those sessions we’ve had elected members of this Council make very clear representations, and express concerns in terms of the travel distances and the times they fear will increase – particularly for those members to the east of the county in the areas such as Llandovery, the upper end of the Towy Valley, members of the Amman Valley and similarly for members in the south east corner of the county in Llanelli; and I would expect those discussions to continue when we speak to the Health Board on 4th May. But clearly for those members in the west of the county, they may be more content with the proposals in terms of the potential sites in St Clears and Whitland. But as I mentioned, these are discussions for elected members to have with the Health Board over the next few weeks and I expect members to fully engage with that process. I do want to say at this juncture that I am a little concerned with regards what we’ve seen this morning, and similarly in the last Cabinet meeting, which essentially is the hijacking and misuse, frankly, of the public question slot for party political purposes. As somebody who was one of the members pushing for greater political accountability and greater engagement with the public some 10 years ago now, the drivers for these two slots in terms of items 4 and 5 that we have before us today – member and public questions – was around greater engagement and accountability. Let me make it clear, I absolutely expect to be held to account politically by members of this Council because that is their job, they have been elected to do it and I welcome it because it leads to better decision making in the long term. I also welcome questions from ordinary, genuine members of the public who want to raise a concern with the Authority, because it is through talking and hearing directly from genuine residents that we often identify gaps and blind spots in our thinking. What I do not welcome, however, is the misuse and hijacking of public question time by a political party to seemingly try and create a platform for themselves. That is not the purpose of this slot, and it saddens me that we’ve had 3 questions this morning from Conservative party members, all of whom have tried and failed to get elected to this place. Presenting themselves, as I mentioned earlier, as defenders of the people, defenders of public services – when they are nothing of the sort. There was an election in May 2022, less than 1 year ago, and Conservative candidates put themselves forward for election across the county - you were universally rejected. Not a single conservative party candidate managed to get elected to this place. I therefore find it insulting, that having failed to convince people at the ballot box, that you try and create yourself a platform by misusing and hijacking the public questions section. We’ve got a raft of pointless questions. Pointless, shallow, party-political questions which waste my time, waste my Cabinet’s time and waste’s officer time. I would respectfully suggest that it takes us no further forward and if members of the local tory party want to make any contribution to improvements in public services in Carmarthenshire, I would ask you to take the fight with your own party colleagues both here in South West Wales and at UK Government level to ensure that they start to put right the wrongs of the last 10 years and the under-funding of public services which has led to the brink of collapse. That is the only answer, and that is the only way out in terms of delivering proper public services in this part of the world. It is shameful, absolutely shameful, that you try and hijack this public question slot for party political purposes. If you want political debate, I am more than happy to engage in it, but the best way of doing that is to convince the electorate in Carmarthenshire that you are the best people to represent them. That hasn’t been your experience up to now, and I suggest that the people of Carmarthenshire can see what you’re up to, they’re not stupid. Your job is to convince your party colleagues that we get enough funding in Carmarthenshire to deliver services as we wish. Thank you”.
Supplementary question by Charlie Evans:-
“I’ve asked my question today as a member of the public, and I’ve asked it very politely and I, unfortunately, don’t think I’ve been afforded the respect due back to me as a member of the public. I pay council tax as a resident of Carmarthenshire, and you Councillor Price are my county councillor so I’m rather concerned that you have not afforded myself, as a resident of the public today, with the same level of respect that I am affording you by engaging in the democratic process. I’m also greatly concerned that you seem to be opening the door to restricting members of the public from asking questions based on party-political affiliation – you would not do that of others so I’m rather concerned. I also take issue with your framing of the question I asked around it being ‘pointless’, ‘shallow’, ‘lacks depth’ – it did seem to be an exercise in avoiding the question. As you will know, any plan for a new hospital requires the close collaboration between the Health Board and the County Council, for example with planning, links to social care and bus service routes, therefore - what level of formal input has Carmarthenshire County Council, given those interdependencies, have you had in constructing the programme business case from Hywel Dda Health Board”?
Response by Councillor. Darren Price, Leader of the Council to the supplementary question:-
“Clearly the Council engages with the Health Board on a whole range of matters, through a whole range of forums. The Health Board are members of the Public Services Board in Carmarthenshire, there is close integration through the Regional Partnership Board and officers work with Health Board partners through a whole myriad of programmes, so that engagement is constant and it will continue.
My comment in terms of it being ‘pointless’ and ‘shallow’ was around the focus on whether it is 5 miles east or west – whether this new hospital end up in St Clears or in Whitland will absolutely make no difference to the wider issues that the Health Service makes – that was the point I was making. There are far more fundamental issues that we need to attack – not just in the medium-term, but in the very short-term in terms of staff recruitment, pay and conditions - which you’re fully aware of. The UK Government have absolutely failed to deal with that. We wonder why we are short staffed - there are thousands of gaps in our workforce in health and social care and we wonder why? They feel undervalued, they feel underpaid and that needs to be sorted – it hasn’t been sorted so far – and that was the reference that I mentioned in terms of your party colleagues in London. In terms of the misuse of the public question slot, I absolutely welcome contributions from genuine members of the public – we had one in Council only last week. It is where they have direct experience, lived experience, where something affects them or their community and they want to see something done.
What we see today is 3 Conservative party members locally putting in questions en bloc. It is absolutely clear for anybody to see that is not a coincidence - it is a coordinated decision taken by the Conservative party to try and create a platform because they have failed, spectacularly, to gain electoral support from the people of Carmarthenshire. I can see it, the Cabinet can see it, I’ve spoken to many members of this Council of all parties, and they can all see it and the people of Carmarthenshire can see it. If you genuinely wanted to know what Carmarthenshire’s position was on the new hospital, you could have emailed me, you could have asked me ‘have you made representations?’ and I could have told you ‘no’ – but that isn’t what you wanted. You wanted to come here, you wanted your 5 minutes of glory and you wanted to make a show. If you wanted a genuine answer you could have emailed me, but that isn’t the intention and that’s what grates on me. This isn’t a chance for party-political debate. Mr Hughes, as Ann Davies mentioned, you made those political points in the press following the last Cabinet contribution and that’s why I think we are very unhappy with how that went – because what you quoted in the press was not what was presented here in the Cabinet”.