8. What discussions has the First Minister had about the waiting lists for surgery in Hywel Dda University Health Board? OQ55890

I thank Helen Mary Jones for that question, Llywydd. Hywel Dda health board has made steady progress over recent years to reduce waiting times for planned surgery and diagnostics. The impact of the coronavirus and the necessary diversion of clinical resources to respond to it have had an inevitable impact on waiting times despite the enormous efforts of front-line staff.

I'm grateful to the First Minister for his reply, and of course I associate myself with what he said about the huge efforts that front-line staff have been making in hospitals and community settings across the Hywel Dda area. But the need for the restoration of ongoing regular treatments is becoming more and more urgent. One of my constituents, Colin Jones from Llanelli, has described being in terrible pain since his GP referred him for a possible hip replacement. It hasn't even been possible for him to see the consultant yet to find out if that's the right way forward. So, understanding the difficulties that there are in providing for those—well, it doesn't feel 'routine' to Colin, I suppose, but for those outwith-COVID treatments—what further work can the Welsh Government do help Hywel Dda University Health Board and health boards across Wales to get those elective surgery waiting lists further down?

Llywydd, I have to repeat something from an answer I gave earlier, which is to say that the single most important thing that we can all do to help our health boards right across Wales is to do everything we can to stem the flow of coronavirus patients into those hospitals. Twenty-one per cent of all hospital admissions last week were for coronavirus, up from 19 per cent the week before, and while that continues, it inevitably drives down the capacity of the system to do non-coronavirus work. So, the most important thing we can do is to do everything that we are asking people to do to bear down on coronavirus, because that will allow the health service to do what it has been doing right through the summer, which is to restore the levels of non-coronavirus work back to where they were—well, as much as possible to where they were—before coronavirus hit. We're not back to those levels, and that is because, as I know the Member understands, even when clinicians are attending to non-coronavirus work, they are working in conditions to prevent the risk of coronavirus, which compromises the productivity rate that was previously possible in the health service.

What the Welsh Government is doing beyond everything we try to do to bear down on coronavirus itself is to support clinicians in the very difficult job that they do of having to clinically prioritise the people who need their attention. And that is a desperately difficult message to give to the individual that Helen Mary Jones referred to, but there will be people with even greater clinical need and, in Wales, I don't think we would ever want to step back from that basic principle that those who need the help the most get to the front of the queue.

Thank you, First Minister.