Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:43 pm on 16 January 2018.
Can I first of all thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement on this very important report, the recommendations of which are welcome to those of us who have worked in and with our health and social care system over a number of years? I'd also like to add my thanks to Ruth Hussey and her team for the work they've put in to delivering it. I'm going to try not to repeat a number of the points that others have made. There are just two short points that I want to make.
Firstly, the recommendations of this review have, without a doubt, placed a huge responsibility on this whole Assembly to rise to the challenge that's been set. The report makes it clear the scale of the challenges that we need to face. In truth, it's a daunting responsibility, because every Member of this Assembly understands, or should understand, that changes in the service are needed, but attempting to make those changes can be difficult when local opposition arises to changes and when political opportunism overtakes the objective consideration. We've already heard in this debate a couple of cheap political shots. I have to say, Rhun, I don't think that was necessary in terms of the consensual way in which we were trying to have a discussion and debate about this particular report.
But changes are needed and they're needed against the backdrop of ongoing financial pressures, so it's incumbent on all of us to ensure that the services are delivered more effectively and possibly in a very different way.
Angela raised the point about the funding for all of this, but I think we need to be very clear that there's no more money coming out of this. There's no more money coming down from Westminster for us to fund the services that we have or the services that we want, going into the future, but we can't continue—we can't afford to continue, sorry—investing in models of health and social care that don't respond to the future needs that are and have been well known and understood for a very long time.
My second point—