Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 26 September 2017.
I agree with you, First Minister; the NHS is about acronyms and, obviously, statistics. But, very often, we miss the actual patients who are waiting on the clinicians who are under pressure, and they just want a straight answer. When you do have so many health boards in Wales, as I said, four of them—. And it’s worth repeating the deficits or the projected deficits that they do have, such as Hywel Dda Local Health Board, £49 million, Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Local Health Board, £35 million, Cardiff and Vale University Local Health Board, £31 million. A lot of people will say, ‘How can you manage those deficits whilst controlling and driving down the waiting times?’ Are you confident that, by the time we get to March, waiting times will be declining and the deficits will be in hand and wiped out, as the health Secretary has indicated? Or will you have to bail out the health boards that have these projected deficits?