Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 3 July 2024.
Okay. During the business statement yesterday, I called for an urgent statement on care home fees after Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board wrote to providers in north Wales setting out a care home fee uplift of just 3.71 per cent for 2024-25. As I stated, Gareth Davies and I met Care Forum Wales last Friday, and they told us that north Wales now has the lowest care home fees in Wales, putting pressure on providers to stop accepting new continuing healthcare patients and to give notice to their current continuing healthcare funded residents, a distressing outcome that nobody wants to see at the very time when need has never been greater and health boards so desperately need these care home beds. In her response, the Trefnydd stated
'that's something that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is actively addressing' on a cross-ministerial basis. How, therefore, do you respond to the call for urgent intervention with the health board to ensure both a sustainable settlement and a national approach to fee setting, to provide a baseline figure that's acceptable to the sector and delivers good value for the taxpayer?