Of course, it's not just ambulance waiting times that need to be urgently prioritised, there's also a need to tackle referral-to-treatment times too. According to the latest figures, the number of patients waiting more than 36 weeks has grown from just under 26,000 in February last year to just under 244,000 by August this year. Indeed, the longest waits included around 56,000 people who need orthopaedic or trauma treatment, and, as a result, we've seen people choose to fly to countries like Lithuania because of the impact that waiting for treatment has had on their lives.

First Minister, you said earlier that people are in hospital who shouldn't be there, but the number of beds in hospitals has been cut by 30 per cent since 1999 under successive Labour and Labour-led Governments. And we also know that there's a staff recruitment crisis that currently means around 3,000 healthcare posts are unfilled. The problems of capacity have occurred on your watch, even before the pandemic. For over a year, we on these benches have been calling for the introduction of regional surgical hubs to help with waiting-list backlogs, and it's not just us saying that, the Royal College of Surgeons have also been calling for the very same thing.

So, First Minister, the Welsh Government's winter plan talks about the development of COVID-lite regional hubs for some settings, and so will you confirm today that surgical hubs will be established across Wales, and if so, when? Also, can you tell us what other urgent short-term measures the Welsh Government is taking to treat those who have been waiting on a list for months and months so that they don't have to travel to Lithuania for treatment in the future?