Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 7 May 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:43, 7 May 2019

Well, Llywydd, what we hear, as ever, in an entirely partial and distorted account of the record of the health service here in Wales. It is because of decisions that the health Minister made on ambulance waiting times that ambulance waiting times in Wales have been met and exceeded in every one of the last 12 months, and why the model that was developed here in Wales is now being copied by other health services, including the health service where his party is in charge, in other parts of the United Kingdom. It is because of the focus of the health Minister on cancer waiting times, for example, that more people in Wales are treated today more quickly and more successfully than ever before in our history. 

And when things go wrong, as they inevitably will in a system of the size and sort that we have, then, in the case that the leader of the opposition highlights again this afternoon, I say to him again it is because of the decisive action that the Minister took in insisting that there was an independent review of the discovery of difficulties in Cwm Taf that we are now in a position of having the recommendations we need, the arrangements in place, and the genuine prospect of those services recovering and being back in place as we would want to see them as fast as that can be possibly be brought about.