Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:41 pm on 9 June 2021.
Thank you, Minister. I appreciate your answer. I suppose it's not just health authorities, but it's other health professionals that you need to work with as well, and many of those I've spoken to over the last couple of weeks just feel disappointed that they haven't yet had that funding allocated and announced. I appreciate the process that you've mentioned and outlined, but I think their concern is that as time ticks on, waiting lists continue to spiral. As I mentioned to you yesterday, Wales is now looking at a waiting list of one in three waiting over a year, compared to one in 11 in England, and this is not just COVID-19 at play here: before the pandemic, the number of those waiting over a year for treatment was triple that of the whole of England.
So, whilst I appreciate what you said, Minister—I understand, to a part, what you said—you'll obviously be aware of your predecessor's commitments as well that it would take a full parliamentary term to clear the backlog of patients. You mentioned in your first response to me that it's going take time to do this, and I think we all acknowledge and understand that. So, can you give any timescales for the NHS providers to know when they will receive this financial support, so that they can plan where to target it? I appreciate the process you've outlined, but can we have some dates potentially attached to that?