Minister, I’d like to understand what your ambition is for the health of the people of Wales. Fifty-one per cent of our population at present are battling with some form of illness. I would like to understand where you would like to see that position by the year 2021.

Reading through your ‘Taking Wales Forward’ document, I’ve noticed again that you major on the fact that you’d like to establish a parliamentary review into the long-term future of health and social care in Wales. I’ve had the great good fortune to have had a number of discussions with the Cabinet Secretary on this. I would like to make it very clear, though, that, whilst the Welsh Conservatives believe that this has the opportunity to deliver a blueprint for national leadership and strategic planning, I would not like to see this parliamentary review as an opportunity to kick a number of difficult decisions the NHS in Wales will have to take into the long grass.

So, Minister, can you assure us that this parliamentary review will not deflect you from putting an enormous amount of energy into resolving the crises that we have in primary healthcare? I’ve noted in your programme, ‘Taking Wales Forward’, that you’re going to put a lot of effort into the recruitment of GPs—something we’ve discussed, and something I’ve discussed with the Cabinet Secretary—but I would also like you to come back and ask or perhaps tell us whether you’re going to be putting the same kind of levels of effort into ensuring that we have adequate nurses, physiotherapists, clinical psychologists and occupational therapists, because we do have a real crisis brewing there. Hywel Dda Local Health Board: 30 per cent of their general practice nurses have indicated that they’re going to be leaving in the next five years. That’s an enormous number, and that’s just one health board.

You talk about increasing investment in facilities to reduce waiting times. First Minister, waiting times is one of the areas that I think the Welsh Labour Government have failed in substantially: 14.3 per cent of Wales’s total population remains on a waiting list. What I would like to understand is: how do you anticipate reducing these waiting times, and where does it stack up in your priority for healthcare?

I’d like to, finally, Presiding Officer, turn to your commentary here on mental health and well-being. I would say to you that mental health has been, for some time, the poor relation in health service provision in Wales. Children’s mental health has a very poor level of funding. At present, it’s about £13.50 per head of population of children. In comparison, £65 is spent per head on older people’s mental health services. First Minister, do you intend to put more funding into mental health services? Do you intend to put more funding into child and adolescent mental health services? Are you able to tell us today when you intend to bring forward the additional learning needs Bill? First Minister, will you be considering bringing forward an autism Act, and will you accept that mental health services are very difficult to deliver in a rural model as, indeed, are all health services? So, I’d finally like to ask you: will you commit to looking at—or do you intend to look at—how we might be able to develop a rural health model that can sit alongside the national health service so that people in the rural areas of Wales, which are substantially, in terms of land mass, by far and away the greater part of Wales—they may not be so in population terms—actually enjoy equality and freedom and the right to access healthcare services as near to them as possible and in a really timely manner? Because they are in danger of becoming yet another orphan within the NHS family.