Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:24 pm on 7 December 2016.
Nick Ramsay
Conservative
2:24,
7 December 2016
Cabinet Secretary, I am really pleased that Llyr Gruffydd has raised this very important question. There are strong links between sleep disorders and mental health, so in dealing with sleep order conditions, you are providing a valuable preventative measure in terms of mental health and other areas of the health service. I think you just mentioned the Aneurin Bevan sleep centre, which is based at Nevill Hall in Abergavenny. I believe it’s the only sleep centre of its kind in Wales—certainly dealing with the scope that it does. It’s only partially funded by the NHS, and I don’t think that that funding is guaranteed from year to year. I appreciate that funding is tight, but could you look at giving the sleep centre a little bit more assuredness in future as to its funding, and look to roll out that best practice across the rest of Wales, because it is, as I say, a preventative measure that really will do a lot to reduce spending in other parts of the health service?
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
