Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:54 pm on 7 December 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:54, 7 December 2021

I thank the leader of the opposition for that and I thank him for drawing attention to the eighth year in a row in which there will be new and record investment in creating the workforce of the future for our NHS. And what Mr Davies said is right: we have cancer services of very high quality in all parts of Wales at the moment and that is a very precious resource to make sure that we sustain.

On the issue of a cancer strategy, I think in some ways this is a debate about semantics rather than substance. England has a cancer plan, Scotland has a cancer strategy and we have a cancer quality statement. Now, those quality statements are derived from the parliamentary review of the health service here in Wales, which described ways in which we could make sure that, in all of the major conditions—heart disease, stroke and, of course, cancer—we had statements of national priorities, a focus on treatment and the early detection of disease. We published our cancer quality statement in March of this year and I think that it does the things that people who ask for a strategy or a plan are looking for. Now, of course, we are very happy to discuss that with those third sector organisations that the leader of the opposition mentioned, but it is not the case that there is no plan for Wales. There is a plan and there is a strategy; it's captured in that quality statement. The aim of the statement is to do exactly the sorts of things that the leader of the opposition suggested.