Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:30 pm on 17 May 2017.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan
Labour
2:30,
17 May 2017
That’s very good to hear, but it’s also worth, I think, underlining the point that it’s not just economic challenges that the NHS is facing; there are particular problems in terms of recruitment. And, as well as in parts of England, there are particular problems in rural Wales in terms of recruitment, where, for example, the Hywel Dda health board have committed to revert to 12-hour consultant coverage at the paediatric ambulatory care unit in Withybush, once they’ve managed to strengthen their clinical team. The problem is that the Royal College of Paediatricians have suggested that 41 per cent of neonatal clinics across the whole of the UK had to be temporarily closed in the past year because of recruitment difficulties, and Withybush is fishing in the same pool for those experts.
I just wondered how we’re going to address that issue, and can you confirm that, in an emergency, Withybush accident and emergency can deal with paediatric cases?
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.
