There’s more than one part to the comments and questions that have been made, and, actually, in terms of improvement this year, I expect improvement to be made this year. I’m expecting the orthopaedic plan from the north Wales health board to be provided within the next month. That’s what I expect, and I expect that to be properly judged then as to when it will deliver action. The additional moneys that have been available are to make improvements within this year for people waiting in the here and now. That does include commissioning capacity outside of north Wales as well. It would be wrong for me to get ahead of actually seeing their plan and understanding how effective it is likely to be and giving a commitment when the issue may be resolved, but what I will say again is: if I don’t have confidence that that issue will be resolved, then I’ll need to have a different discussion about how to actually deliver improvements for people in north Wales.

On your point about thrombectomy, this is a relatively new treatment that is available and it has a potentially significant impact for people suffering from stroke. The service was commissioned in Cardiff and became active with three consultants working together as a team—that was assessed to be the right number of people for the needs of people in the whole south Wales area. Unfortunately, two out of those three consultants have now left, due to circumstances that are generally beyond the health board. The challenge has been recruiting people to fill those posts. One person has been recruited and is starting this month. However, they’ll be undertaking a period of supervision for the first four months, which is entirely normal. I do then expect further steps to be taken to make sure the service is back up to capacity. That does mean that, at this point in time, we’re commissioning additional capacity from within the English system.

It is also worth pointing out that, actually, every other part of the United Kingdom system has a challenge in meeting the need for this new service. You’ll note that, in the piece this weekend, it noted there are significant parts of England that similarly have challenges in having a fully staffed and functioning service, and, in addition, the same can be said of Scotland as well. So, this is about how we get back to a relatively new form of treatment, to commission it properly and on a sustainable basis moving forward. This, of course, is a serious priority for myself and the service.