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Peter Black and South Wales West Liberal DemocratsRepresenting Aberavon, Bridgend, Gower, Neath, Ogmore, Port Talbot, and Swansea |
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Health of the nation should be the measure of government success
September 29, 2009 12:00 AM
Welsh Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Minister, Peter Black, has said that the statistics released today should be the real measure of how much progress the government is making on health.
The statistics, released as the Welsh Health Survey 2008 show key health indicators in relation to the population including those with heart or respiratory problems, those who are over-weight or obese, those suffering from high blood pressure and smoking.
The survey shows that little progress has been made on the majority of the key statistics. In 2007 20% of adults were being treated for high blood pressure and 14% for a respiratory illness. In 2008 each of these dropped slightly to 19% and 13% respectively. There was no progress on the number of people being treated for mental illnesses and for diabetes. There was no change to the number of adults reporting that they smoked or the number who are over-weight or obese.
The only significant areas of progress shown included a drop in the number of overweight and obese children and a drop in the number of people reporting to have been exposed to other people's tobacco.
Peter Black said:
"The government can talk about strategies and spending, but what matters to people in Wales is outcomes. This is the only fair way of measuring how much progress the government is making on improving the health of the population. Unfortunately these stats show that little is being achieved."
"We know that diabetes suffers from the problem of people not being aware they are suffering, so we would hope detection rates would increase and yet there has been no increase in the percentage of people shown to have the condition. This means there are still thousands of people whose health is being affected and they are not aware of it.
"At the same time, we would hope conditions such as high blood pressure and obesity would be decreasing, but this does not appear to be the case either. This shows us that the nation is simply not getting any healthier."
"I would however congratulate the government on a small drop in the number of children who are overweight or obese and highlight the success of the smoking ban in slashing the number of people who are passively smoking in Wales."
"These statistics make it clear that there are still significant health challenges facing Wales. The government is still busy spinning away on the progress they claim to be making, but underneath the reorganisations and strategies, people's health simply isn't improving. The government must begin to refocus their agenda, on to helping those with health problems in Wales."
ENDS
Notes:
The full statistics can be found at: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/statistics/headlines/health2008/hdw20080918/?lang=en
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