Thank you for your update, Cabinet Secretary, but I have to say that it’s such a shame for the people who need Betsi Cadwaladr that the Cabinet Secretary’s statement doesn’t contain more good news than the broad assertions that there have been unquantified improvements in some areas.

Now, I’m not going to rehearse the disgraceful statistics that have come out of Betsi Cadwaladr; we're all aware of them, and they’ve been rehearsed many times in this place. At the same time, I acknowledge that Betsi’s problems are complex and have built up over a long period of time. Similarly, I acknowledge that the Cabinet Secretary doesn’t possess a magic wand that he can wave and instantly solve the problems at Betsi.

But to solve the problem, or a myriad of them, which is what we’ve got at Betsi, you have to understand the nuts and bolts. Expert reports of course show a big part of the picture, and they're very useful documents; they're detailed investigations and they go a long way to helping you solve the problem. But staff who are delivering these health services on the ground, and those other staff and workers who enable them to do it, also have a wealth of knowledge about Betsi and form a pool of solutions that appears to be untapped. I understand the Cabinet Secretary has conducted a staff survey, and it's one of the positives that the Cabinet Secretary reports that staff satisfaction has risen markedly, although, sadly, how good a piece of news that is very much depends on the content of the survey itself. But on the face of it, it's very good news.

So, I'd be interested to hear whether the Cabinet Secretary would consider the suggestion that staff at all levels, from the cleaner to the chair of Betsi's board, be asked to complete an anonymous and confidential survey into their opinions on the challenges they face in their own role, those they face when interacting with other roles in the organisation at all levels, and where the successes are as they see them, where the problems are, and seeking their opinions and suggestions as to the solutions in their particular department and around them. It's something that private sector businesses do periodically when they experience problems of a similar seriousness.

Now, I appreciate that there are whistleblowing mechanisms and a way of reporting concerns confidentially. I also appreciate that the kind of survey I'm suggesting would be a big task, but I think it's a valuable task, and it would be a worthwhile task, because surely the time now has come for a full, proactive 360-degree review of Betsi Cadwaladr at all levels via the staff, who actually live this organisation day in, day out; one that goes out of its way to seek the input of the clinical and other staff in a way that’s guaranteed to be anonymous and confidential and comprehensive.

Now, moving on to the board itself, I know that on the board there are journalists, an ex-police officer and a variety of other non-NHS-related backgrounds. None of the top three posts—chairman, vice-chair or chief exec—is held by anyone with a single day's clinical training or work experience under their belts. The chairman's an ex-police officer, the vice-chair's from the BBC, and the chief exec is a politics and economics graduate. Now, all of the members of the board have worthy curriculum vitae and they're impressive in their own fields, but I'd like the Cabinet Secretary to explain what the purpose is of appointing non-clinical people to run a health service, and what he believes they actually bring to the management of the NHS in north Wales. Doesn’t he think that perhaps the majority of the board should be clinicians if the service in north Wales is to be clinician-led, as the Cabinet Secretary has said in the past that he wants? And does the Cabinet Secretary think that it's acceptable, and does he feel that the public feel that they can trust the decisions of a health board that has comparatively few health professionals on it? Does the Cabinet Secretary not feel that the public would be more assured if his actions also included ensuring there were far more board members with clinical practice backgrounds, together with direct and current experience of the NHS as it exists in north Wales? The Cabinet Secretary's party likes to talk about quotas on management boards when it comes to gender and other things, but why not when it comes to knowledge and experience? Thank you.