I would like to thank the Welsh Language Commissioner and his staff for their ongoing work. For those dependent on the care sector, speaking Welsh is not a matter of choice, it's a necessity. I'm currently dealing with a constituent whose mother, suffering from dementia, has lost the ability to speak in English. She recently suffered a fall and was forced to wait nearly five hours for help, a bad situation in and of itself, but one made so much worse because she was unable to communicate with ambulance staff. Hours spent in pain, frightened and totally isolated, all because staff don't speak your language. The ability to communicate is something we all take for granted. How terrifying must it be to be unable to make yourself understood at the time of your greatest need? Sadly, it's not just my constituent who was faced with this experience. Regrettably, the lack of Welsh-speaking staff in health and care results in this being all too common. The commissioner highlights that progress is being made to improve the number of Welsh speakers entering healthcare through schemes such as Tomorrow's Doctors. Tomorrow's Doctors, a joint venture between Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol and the medical schools at Cardiff and Swansea, has, according to the commissioner's report, seen record numbers of Welsh-speaking students begin their medical training. However, it's one thing to train the Welsh-speaking doctors of tomorrow; it's quite another to convince them to stay and practise in Wales.

And while we are making progress, albeit slowly, in recruiting Welsh-speaking medics, we have an even bigger problem in social care. In social care, fewer than 13 per cent of staff across Wales are Welsh speakers. We are struggling to recruit sufficient staff to meet the care needs of today's Wales, let alone tomorrow's. In order to meet the challenges, there is a clamour to recruit staff from overseas. While this short-termism may alleviate the recruitment crisis, it will also reduce the number of Welsh-speaking care staff. We know that large numbers of social care staff are approaching retirement age in the coming decade. If we are not recruiting Welsh-speaking, Welsh-domiciled staff to replace them, then we are compounding the problem. People like my constituents are relying upon us to ensure that the staff looking after them can communicate well with them, and an inability to speak Welsh is a barrier to care, one that we must overcome urgently.

I thank the Welsh Language Commissioner for his ongoing work to improve the situation, but progress is far too slow. Not only must the Welsh Government take steps to make social care an attractive career with more than adequate pay and conditions, they must also incentivise Welsh speakers to take up a caring profession, as well as making it easier for existing staff to acquire Welsh language skills. Our constituents need us to act. How many more people suffering from dementia will be left isolated and alone, confused and afraid, all because staff cannot communicate with them in their mother tongue? Diolch yn fawr iawn.