Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 3:18 pm on 9 February 2021.
First Minister, it is a fact, as I identified in my opening remarks, that waiting times are large across the United Kingdom—I accept that—but here in Wales they are particularly acute, with one in five people on a waiting list from the whole population. And where my concern comes into play here is the urgency the Government is putting into this to have a plan of recovery out of COVID. When you have the chief executive of Tenovus Cancer Care saying that they have faced pushback from Ministers when it comes to recovery plans for cancer services, and the report that Macmillan Cancer Support identified last week that 3,500 have gone with undiagnosed cancer because of coronavirus, this surely is a huge concern to us all, because of the detrimental impact this has on outcomes, and the longer term pressures on the health service.
So, why are the cancer charities saying that they are facing pushback from Ministers when it comes to putting an urgent cancer plan in place, and, if that pushback doesn't exist, will you commit to developing that cancer plan that is urgently required, as Tom Crosby has identified—the cancer lead for Wales—that the cancer services in Wales will have to perform at 120 per cent to 130 per cent of capacity to get into these waiting times that we are facing here in Wales?