A very happy birthday to the NHS. A birthday is a time for celebration and, more than anything, I think we celebrate all the NHS staff—hundreds of thousands of them over 70 years who have made the NHS what it is. They're our friends, they're our families, they're our loved ones. My grandmother—I was trying to work this out today—would have left the NHS in its very first few years. She was a nurse at the Royal Liverpool hospital and I know that she would be looking back with amazement at what the NHS has become. Any birthday is a time for reflection; the 70-year anniversary is a time to reflect on the feat in itself that we still have an NHS that has lasted this long. It's a fantastic achievement in itself. When it was created, there were great doubts about whether it would last, about whether it would be sustainable, and about whether the concept of providing care free at the point of delivery would lead to an onslaught of people seeking free treatment. At risk of playing political football, there are those on the right of politics who still question the sustainability of the NHS and think that privatisation is the way forward and raise fears of an onslaught of people seeking free prescriptions and so on. But I'm confident that we'll be looking back at 140 years, when 70 years has gone by again, and I'm sure the same questions about sustainability will be asked then. But the key thing is that all of us have to be clear that that sustainability is a priority, a priority for us in all that we do.

The point has been raised about the NHS being used as a political football, and I'll say at the outset here that I have no doubt that this Government and the Conservatives and everybody else represented want the NHS to perform as well as it possibly can. We have different approaches, of course, on how that could be achieved, and I think that, where we can work together, it is in the interests of everybody in Wales—the staff of the NHS and patients too—but it is important that we do hold Government to account. And I make no apologies—20 years after Labour took control of the NHS in Wales—about raising questions about why you've failed to get to grips with the workforce challenges in the way that I think could have been done; why there's still a lack of integration of social care; why there is still poor performance of waiting times compared with other nations in the UK. And the patients and staff of the NHS look to us to hold you in Government to account on those areas.

I'll ask you a few questions: one, I think the biggest threat, and I'm sure you'll agree with me, at the beginning of the second 70 years of the NHS, is the very real threat of a hard Brexit. I would appreciate your comments on some of the—. The concerning answer that I heard from the First Minister earlier today, when he suggested there are no preparations being made within the Welsh NHS for a hard Brexit. He suggested that there's no way the NHS could prepare for a hard Brexit. I don't believe that for a second, and now is the time to be making sure that all possible steps—however challenging they may be—are taken to prepare us for a hard Brexit.

Secondly, about valuing staff. I'd appreciate your thoughts on how we support staff who are overworked. We know we need more staff in the NHS, and, of course, we've put forward ideas such as the training of doctors, for example, in Bangor. We need to relieve that stress, but how will you deal with overworked staff and the help they need now?

And finally, in terms of the future, the third paragraph, I think it was, of your statement, refers to the fundamental principles underpinning the NHS. I don't think we've achieved the fundamental principles when it comes to care, and I would appreciate your comments on how we achieve the aim of providing care as well as healthcare for people in Wales, because those principles are as important in care as they are in the NHS.