Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I formally move the amendment in the name of Siân Gwenllian. I’m sure that all of our inboxes include a number of examples of people suffering in their communities because they have to wait for an ambulance. For example, a constituent of mine in Abererch had to wait for 15 hours for an ambulance and she was in distress and her family were concerned for her life. And look at the staff, who often have to travel great distances the length and breadth of the country because there isn’t an ambulance available nearby. In addition to this, there are concerns that there are cuts to ambulance services in some areas, for example, Aberystwyth and Cardigan, as we’ve heard recently.

But why is this happening? Well, certainly it’s not the fault of the staff of the ambulance service, who are stretched beyond all reason. Indeed it is a symptom of a deep-seated problem. Let’s follow the journey of the patient. The patient goes into the ambulance, having waited for many hours, queues outside a hospital for hours, often behind a dozen or more other ambulances, and then, after a period in hospital, having made a sufficient recovery to return to the community, rather than being returned to the community, they can’t release the patient because there isn’t a community bed available or there is no social carer available for them. It is one crisis on top of another, emerging from the fact that there has been a historic shortage in terms of recruitment, retention and fair pay for health service staff. Of course, it would be wonderful to see more ambulances and paramedics available to respond on the front line, but I fear that all this would do would be to add to the queues of ambulances outside accident and emergency departments, because we need to look further up the system to see why it is overwhelmed.

Back in 2012, we saw a number of significant changes to health services the length and breadth of Wales. In north Wales, a programme called 'Healthcare in North Wales is Changing' was sanctioned by the then Labour Government, and that led in turn to the closure of a number of community hospitals, such as Blaenau Ffestiniog, Llangollen and Flint, centralising and downgrading some services, with a pledge that there would be more care available in the community. Yes, health services in north Wales and across Wales changed, but not always for the better. This discussion here today is the upshot of all of those changes.

In order to maintain an effective and sustainable health service, you need spare capacity in terms of beds. It's not me saying this but the specialists in this area. This is what the BMA told the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee in 2016, and I will quote in English: