Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 28 September 2021.
Llywydd, let me try to respond to the serious point in the Member's question, because somewhere in there there was something of that sort. The NHS in Wales is under huge pressure—huge pressure in everything that it is trying to do to provide a service for people in Wales. Recovering from coronavirus, activity is still not back to pre-pandemic levels because people are still having to wear PPE, people are still having to work in physical circumstances where, in order to keep them safe, they don't have access to the sorts of facilities they would have had previously. We're asking them at the same time to carry out a record flu vaccination programme, a booster vaccination programme, and we're asking them to try to catch up on some of the treatments that were unavoidably delayed during the pandemic. All of that, I agree with the Member, puts enormous pressure, and enormous pressure on a workforce that is exhausted from the harrowing experiences that they will have had to work with over the last 18 months.
Of course the Welsh Government will work with them. We will have an updated coronavirus control plan, and that will be a very important part of how we face this winter. And there will be plans beyond that for the other aspects of what the NHS has to manage. In order to do so, we have invested £1 billion more—£1 billion—£991 million of revenue and £40 million-worth of capital in this financial year alone, over and above what would otherwise have been available to the health service. And if we are serious in this Chamber about doing everything we can to recognise the challenge that the health service faces and to work where we can together to find solutions to that, then you will find that the Government will always be willing to have those sorts of conversations.