Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:23 pm on 25 November 2020.
Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I welcome the opportunity to move the motion in the name of Darren Millar on the order paper this afternoon. For those who are not aware of the tabling arrangements of the National Assembly for Wales, or the Welsh Parliament as I should call it now, those people might wonder why we haven't put the waiting times that were published last Thursday in the motion. But, as people who know the tabling arrangements would know, they have to be in on the Wednesday afternoon.
So, I do think it is worth us reflecting on what those figures did tell us last Thursday. And these are figures across the UK as well—we do accept the point that all NHSs across the UK have seen a massive increase in the waiting times—but here, in Wales, the 36-week-plus waiting times went up by 597 per cent to 168,000 people, and 26 to 36 weeks went up by 250 per cent, from 54,000 people to 116,000. That's the scale of the challenge that we face here in Wales, irrespective of whatever Government forms after May next year. That's in excess of 0.5 million people who are on a waiting list here in Wales: 517,000 people are now on a waiting list. And, of course, that's for treatment.