Trefnydd, can I call for two statements, please? The first is from the Minister for Health and Social Services in relation to the delivery of the diabetes delivery plan in north Wales. I received a copy of an e-mail today from Dai Williams, the national director of Diabetes UK Cymru, which was sent to Gary Doherty, the chief executive of the health board in north Wales. According to that e-mail, there are 42,605 individuals in north Wales, in the Betsi Cadwaladr area, who suffer from diabetes, and £136 million is the price tag that is attached to that in terms of dealing with the consequences of the health outcomes for those individuals. And the e-mail suggests that 80 per cent of those costs are largely avoidable.

But what’s of great concern to me is that Dai Williams refers to a recent meeting of the diabetes planning and delivery group, at which the chair didn’t know who the executive lead was at the health board in respect of the diabetes delivery plan. He then goes on to say that he has been attending the meetings for 10 years and has only ever seen the executive lead on one single occasion. Nobody knows who that is at present, and this clearly shouts out of a huge gap between clinicians and senior managers at the board. He describes stakeholders saying that it’s embarrassing and that they are amazed at this lack of clarity.

He concludes by saying that the time for excuses is over and that we need some real leadership on that board to be able to tackle this problem. Now, of course, this is a health board that is in special measures—the Welsh Government is intervening in this health board for all sorts of different reasons. I think that this is another issue that clearly needs some attention. I know that the system is much better in some other health boards, and I think we do need a statement to give some confidence to people in north Wales that appropriate action is being taken by the Government to address it.

Can I also call for a statement on GP training in north Wales? I was very alarmed to see that 50 per cent of eligible applicants for GP training in north Wales were actually turned away in the past two years, according to the local medical committee in north Wales. Of course, this is at a time when there is a GP shortage in the region. We’ve seen a number of GP practices close. In fact, we’ve seen three GP practices close, four are deemed to be at risk, four are deemed to be at risk according to informal criteria, and 14 are currently being managed by the health board directly in that region. And yet, in spite of this, in spite of people being eligible to access the training if extra places were made available, no extra places were actually put on. In Bangor, 24 individuals applied, 16 met the criteria, but only 12 individuals were actually offered a training place. In Wrexham, a place that has seen GP services close and surgeries close, there were 11 who met the eligibility criteria, but only seven were offered a place, and this is a pattern that has been repeated over a couple of years. I can see that the health Minister is concerned about this. I wonder what you can do to actually address this so that we can meet this shortfall in the number of GPs, so that people aren't having to travel miles to surgeries and aren’t having the sorts of difficulties that they're having at the moment in terms of accessing a GP appointment. We need a statement on this as soon as possible, please.