Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:06 pm on 19 June 2018.
I thank the First Minister for that reply. As he knows, a significant part of Mid and West Wales is within the Betsi Cadwaladr health board area. As of the end of March, there were 5,714 patients that were waiting more than nine months for treatment in hospital. Under Betsi's current plans, many orthopaedic patients will still be waiting more than a year for treatment, and 4,200, generally, will wait more than nine months to be treated, whereas in Powys, that nine-month wait has actually been eliminated. Betsi also says that there's a systemic deficit of 13,500 patient pathways on the basis of patient demand, so that must mean that they are not being funded properly to provide a suitably comprehensive system of healthcare for the people of that region. Is it acceptable to the Welsh Government that, under Betsi's plans, this is a health board that is actually planning to fail?