Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm pleased to open the Welsh Conservative debate tabled in the name of Darren Millar. We want to express our concern at the capacity of the Welsh NHS to meet demand for unplanned care throughout the year, and not just in the winter months, which is often much discussed here, because the truth of the situation is that pressures may look marginally different in winter, because there are a greater number of young children with bronchiolitis or frail people suffering from falls and chest conditions, but the hard reality is that these pressures are year-round, and a constant failure by the Welsh Government to tackle this challenge severely hinders the ability of the NHS to provide consistent and equitable access to unplanned care. 

In the last 12 months, nearly 1,400 days—that's one thousand four hundred days—of extreme emergency pressures for Welsh NHS hospitals were recorded. Our hospitals operated under extreme pressure on 1,395 days over a one-year period in 2016-17. The pressure on the service, on staff and on patients is intolerable and cannot go on. Sickness rates in the Welsh ambulance service run at a staggering 8.8 per cent and, in 2015-16, the NHS in Wales lost over 948 person-years of work due to staff being absent with stress-related sickness. Therefore, we call upon the Welsh Government to develop a comprehensive national plan to address pressures in out-of-hours, critical care and ambulance services in order to ensure that patients receive timely services that meet their needs.

Now, it seems to me that improvements in these key areas depend on ensuring that people do not end up relying on those vital services because they're unable to access care in the local community in which they live. Getting a community-based model of care right is vital, especially as Government and health boards are seeking to transform the provision of secondary care. When areas such as west Wales see the delivery of healthcare being changed in a way that doesn't match the availability of services in the community it begs the question: how can we stop putting pressure on critical care, on out-of-hours services and on ambulance teams throughout Wales?

We've heard time and again that those of us who are lucky enough to live longer—and, with luck, to do so in our own homes—often struggle to get the appropriate support, usually because of a lack of resource available from social services. Whilst the aim of this debate is to draw attention to the Government's lack of integrated planning for unplanned care, I do accept that amendments 2 and 3, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth, bring to the table a vital element, and we'll be supporting his amendments.

Deputy Llywydd, I can't take the Government's amendment with any degree of seriousness. Let me read this bit out:

'Calls upon the Welsh Government to support the implementation of a Healthier Wales to address pressures on out-of-hours, critical care and ambulance services'.