Thank you for the follow-up questions. I do agree that long waits are unacceptable. There’s a real challenge for Betsi Cadwaladr in actually delivering property capacity and demand within its services. We know that there’s likely to be more demand as we move forward and that’s why they have to take a range of measures. The initial orthopaedic plan they had at board wasn’t endorsed because there’s still further work to do on it.

There’s a challenge here about a range of our services, not just specialist services but elective services as well, in understanding how we use properly the capacity we have and in reconfiguring that capacity to make better use of it. I think the link that you attempt to draw between a decision over a medical school and the ability to recruit enough staff to work within a different model—I don’t accept that there is a direct link in the way in which you try to present it.

The decision that I announced yesterday was meeting the commitment that I gave to the Assembly to give that indication before recess, and it was deliberately done before questions today to make sure there are opportunities to have this debate within the Chamber. But the health committee report did not say that there should be a medical school in north Wales. It made a number of points that I do take seriously about the case being made to make sure that training across the country takes place, and where those medical education places are actually provided. That includes a proper conversation with the two medical schools about where their students are housed and where they undertake their medical education, and, as I indicated in my statement yesterday, I do think there is a proper case to take forward to ensure that more people undertake medical education within north Wales.

So, there has to be a proper partnership carried forward between Bangor, Cardiff and Swansea universities and the national health service to make sure we do deliver more places for medical education to take place. That must take place regardless of any expansion in numbers, because if I were to try and tell you and other people this will only take place if there is an expansion in numbers in medical education, it would be the wrong signal to give. I think it’s important with our current cohort we think about how we provide the opportunity for more of those people to undertake their education in different settings. That does tie in with work already in place, and I’m committed to doing that and to having and open and a sensible conversation with stakeholders, not just across the national health service but in this Chamber and beyond to deliver on that ambition, because I do think there will then be a greater prospect of people either staying in north Wales or returning to north Wales to undertake further periods of medical education and actually staying to work within the national health service thereafter.