8. Welsh Conservatives Debate: NHS Waiting Times

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:55 pm on 10 March 2021.

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Photo of Rhun ap Iorwerth Rhun ap Iorwerth Plaid Cymru 4:55, 10 March 2021

(Translated)

Thank you very much, Llywydd. My contribution won't be very long to this debate. I want to take this opportunity once again to thank everyone who is working so very hard on our behalf across health and care services in all parts of Wales. The willingness of staff to go that extra mile time and time again over the past year is something that each and every one of us has appreciated, and I hope that it has provided a renewed focus on the challenge facing us.

So, to move to the motion. Although I am quite sure that the Conservative Party, who brought the motion forward, will bring a new series of very deep problems to the NHS if they ever get their hands on it, what we have in this motion is a description of an unsustainable health service—a health service that has been made unsustainable, I'm afraid, by the failure of a series of Labour Ministers to give the health and care landscape in Wales the kind of stability and support that it needs. Those committed staff that I referred to have had to carry more than the burden they should have carried due to that unsustainability and lack of support.

That hasn't always meant lack of financial support. There is no doubt that many years of cuts imposed by the UK Government have made public service budgets more vulnerable, but we still see what percentage of public expenditure in Wales is spent on the health service. However, there is more to it than simply the financial. What we have here, I think, is a failure to have transformed health and care, and the time has come, in my view, to do that. I look forward to seeing a Plaid Cymru Government grappling with this issue.

So, what is that transformation that we're seeking? I refer to the amendment tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian, and I formally move that amendment. We must have nothing less than a revolution now in terms of preventative care. We have to create a society that is healthier. We have to create a regime that identifies diseases far sooner, and prevents them from developing. I want to be at a point where health funding can be used to build sports facilities. That's the kind of sustainability that I am looking for, ultimately, and we have to set that target for ourselves. I can see the Minister, Dafydd Elis-Thomas, shaking his head—he doesn't want to see funding spent on sports facilities and the preventative benefits that they bring. You'd be welcome to make an intervention to this debate, Deputy Minister.

We've also reached a point where we do have to see a real integration between health and social care, and our aim is to create an integrated national health and care service. It will be delivery at a local level. It won't mean huge structural change at a local level, but it will mean the introduction of clear frameworks for health and care, and how they interact. I appreciate the ambition by the Conservatives of employing 3,200 additional staff. We in Plaid Cymru have been talking for years about the need for an additional 6,000 doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. That's what we must introduce over the next few years in order to provide that sustainability.

Of course, that comes at a time of unprecedented challenge following a year of pandemic, and yes, that makes the challenge even greater, but the catching up now has to go hand in hand with transformation, and we can't at any stage decide to postpone the transformation that we need to see happening in health and care because of the pandemic. It means working smarter for years to come, because the point has now come where we need a real revolution in Wales.