Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:53 pm on 7 December 2021.

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Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 1:53, 7 December 2021

Thank you for that, First Minister. I'll look forward to that announcement imminently, hopefully.

But you talked of a jigsaw, and the pattern of healthcare is about a jigsaw and it's important that Government has strategies with its partners. Now, last week, to the health committee, Cancer Research highlighted how Wales, shortly, will be the only part of the United Kingdom without an up-to-date cancer strategy. We know, over the weekend, that the Welsh Government—and I commend them for doing this—brought forward a staff training budget with an increase of £250 million and that will provide a 15 per cent uplift, as I understand it, in training provision. But what we do know is that there are many people who haven't come forward with cancer symptoms, and we do know that, by 2030 according to Macmillan, we'll need an extra 80 per cent of cancer specialist nurses here in Wales. So, to bring this jigsaw together, it is important that there is a strategy in place that pulls all the component parts together, so that cancer services can deal with the tidal wave—and I regretfully use that word—of undiagnosed cancer that does sit in communities, because people, for understandable reasons, haven't come forward. Will you commit today to bringing forward a cancer strategy so that all cancer services across Wales can work to that strategy, and wherever you live in Wales, you will be assured of a world-beating cancer service, wherever you live in Wales, rather than a postcode lottery, which I say doesn't exist at the moment, but we don't want that to open up in Wales?