Of course, other primary care professionals that are included in your statement include specialist nurses working in the community and the home. In November 2011, I hosted an event in the Assembly on specialist nurses. At that time, for example, there was only one multiple sclerosis specialist nurse in Wales. I noted that we couldn’t afford to make knee-jerk reactions and cuts because specialist nurses ultimately save money and provide an important service. I talked about how much money was being saved across Wales by epilepsy, Parkinson’s, MS and other specialist nurses, and how they cut down admissions to hospital.

The Royal College of Physicians and the Association of British Neurologists recommend three clinical nurse specialists per 0.5 million population for MS, for example. The Steers report recommended one per 300 patients, but we still only have, for example, one MS nurse in north Wales for a population of patients of 1,100. There has been recruitment of other multidisciplinary team members, but other health boards providing better clinical nurse specialist and patient ratios also employ staff in these positions. How, therefore, will you address a situation in which, for example, the recommended level by Steers in Cardiff and the Vale is 2.3, and by the RCP and the ABN it’s 2.9, but they actually achieve 3.5, whereas north Wales has recommended levels of 3.7 or 4.2, but they still only have one? So, how can you tackle this on an all-Wales basis to fill in those gaps, recognising—and I’m sure you’ll agree—that it doesn’t always have to be a specialist nurse relevant to an individual condition; that it can be generic neurological nurses, but how to tackle the gaps that continue?