The pandemic has highlighted many things about our NHS—the resilience of our staff, their commitment to patients in the many additional hours that they have worked, and the flexibility that so many staff have demonstrated to help put in place the response to the pandemic. The pandemic has also highlighted some weaknesses of a system that has been creaking for some time. In her contribution, Janet Finch-Saunders said that waiting lists were on the rise before this public health crisis started, and we know that the backlog is now so big that it will take action for years to get it back to normal. In fact, the chief executive of NHS Wales admitted that point last week.

I'm concerned that, as we approach winter, waiting lists will inexorably grow longer, as they always do at this time of year, particularly as the NHS focuses on COVID-19 and winter pressures. Nowhere is this more stark than in my area in south-east Wales. The people will now need to know when they can expect treatment for not just routine matters but also access to life-saving treatments. In September this year, there were 26,974 people waiting for more than 36 weeks to start their treatment in south-east Wales, when the target is zero, compared to only 1,313 a year ago. This is clearly a colossal increase. The Royal College of Surgeons, in their recent evidence to the inquiry undertaken by the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, outlined that a significant elective surgery backlog existed in Wales, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that this will only have increased. In January 2020, the last waiting-time statistics before the pandemic showed nearly half a million people waiting to start treatment, with 76,862 waiting more than 26 weeks. The risk is that many patients will require complex surgery if their treatment doesn't occur in a timely fashion, resulting, as we know, too often in worsening symptoms and deterioration in their condition.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I have, on several occasions in this Chamber, welcomed the building and the recent opening of the new Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran. We should all be ambitious about reforming the delivery of services to better suit patient needs, with new facilities, a focus on innovative models of care and the latest in technology and equipment. That project has been in development now for well over 10 years—I think, before I was elected to this place, I remember taking part in the Gwent clinical futures meetings then—and we finally have that excellent facility. But if new facilities are to be effective, they have to be properly resourced with the right level of staff. Any risk of shortages needs to be avoided, and people need to know that the hospital is accessible by both car and public transport, because these issues have been raised with me in recent weeks. The problem is, welcoming new capacity is too rare, and the problem of waiting times and growing waiting lists is the opposite—it's not rare, and something that the Welsh Government have had to respond to in the past.

In the second Assembly, the then health Minister introduced the second-offer scheme to bring the waiting list and waiting times down by offering treatment elsewhere in the NHS and outside Wales in the independent sector. At that point, many people were then treated more quickly. In fact, between April and September 2005, a total of 495 people from Gwent were offered alternative hospitals in the private sector to get their operations done. In all fairness to the Government at that time, it demonstrated a willingness to look beyond narrow political standpoints about treating people outside of Wales and outside the NHS, and secured a workable solution for patients at that time. In light of the fact that theatre capacity across Wales has been below optimal for some time, has the Welsh Government explored the option of increasing short-term capacity, perhaps working with providers outside Wales who might have capacity to address this?

Whilst all NHS bodies across the UK will be managing the response to the pandemic, I would ask that the Minister sets out whether capacity exists elsewhere and, if it is possible, to perhaps scope out some kind of second second-offer scheme—a phase 2, if you like—to address this important crisis. If not, then what else can be done to examine the flexing up of the previous surge capacity that was introduced during the UK-wide lockdown to protect the NHS in case the COVID-19 numbers start to really undermine the NHS capacity? Additional capacity is now needed to address the consequences of the pandemic for thousands of people whose need of NHS care is equally important as it has been in the past.