I now call on the party spokespeople. First of all, Russell George. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Minister, on this second anniversary of COVID restrictions being introduced across Wales and across the UK, certainly on behalf of the Welsh Conservatives, I think we can all agree across this Chamber—. I want to thank everyone who has kept us safe, and our thoughts are, of course, today particularly with the friends and families of those who have lost loved ones during the course of the pandemic. 

Today is also a year and a day since your predecessor published the health and social care recovery plan. Can I ask, Minister, what progress you consider has been made since that recovery plan was published a year ago?

Thanks very much, Russell, and I'd like to join you in thanking our health and care workers who have worked so diligently to keep us safe and to protect the people in their care over that very difficult period, but also to extend my sympathies to those who have lost loved ones in very difficult circumstances, where they weren't even able to give them the kind of send-offs that they may have wanted for them, to celebrate their lives. 

The health and social care recovery plan is being implemented. It is part of a programme that is ongoing. Part of that has been the implementation of things like the real living wage, to make sure, and that's gone quicker that we'd hoped. That was set out within that health and care recovery plan. Also, you'll be aware that we set out some expectations for the service in terms of delivery. We'll be hardening up some of those expectations in the planned care recovery programme that we will be publishing in the next few weeks. 

Thank you for your answer, Minister, and I attach myself to the first part of your answer there. 

In regard to the recovery plan, I noticed that Nick Bennett, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, today talks about NHS waiting times in Wales causing a public health crisis. So, it's certainly my view that we are a long way from even getting on to a recovery plan. And a recovery plan, to me, should be significantly about reducing the backlogs in our Welsh NHS, and that's not something you did address in your answer. When I mentioned this to you a couple of weeks ago, you talked about, 'We only saw an increase of 0.2 per cent in December for Welsh NHS waiting lists', but it's my view that we should not be celebrating that kind of—. Well, it's not an achievement at all. What we do need to do is absolutely focus on significantly reducing the waiting times backlog, and of course the Welsh NHS and health boards should be supported at every level to eat into those backlogs. And of course, behind every stat—. We talk about stats, don't we, Minister? I know you'll agree with me that behind every stat there are real people that are in pain waiting for months and for years for treatment, and I know that you'll find that unacceptable yourself. But this is about how we reduce those significant backlogs.

I understand, Minister, you've asked health boards to ensure that none of their patients are waiting more than two years by the end of February, just gone, and also waiting for more than a year for urgent outpatient appointments by the end of January, January just gone. So, can I ask you, Minister, have these targets been met, and what direct actions are you going to take to ensure that health boards and the health service are urgently reducing these shocking—and they are shocking—health times so that we are not in that public health crisis?

Thanks very much. I am extremely concerned about the backlog; it keeps me awake at night. The fact is that I'm spending most of my time these days trying to make sure that we have a very clear recovery plan. That planned care programme will, as I say, be published in the next couple of weeks. We're just trying to finalise the details on that.

Tomorrow, you'll be aware that new waiting lists will come out, those results. I've been absolutely clear and open and honest. I think it's really important that we manage expectations here. The fact is that we've just had an omicron variant that is now again increasing, and we're seeing more people in our hospitals at a time when, frankly, we were hoping we'd be able to really go at this with vigour.

We're just finalising and looking through the integrated medium term plan proposals from the health boards, where they set out what they hope to have as targets. We know that targets haven't been met. We're not the only country in the world that hasn't seen targets met. I don't think there's any country in the world that has met targets in the face of the COVID crisis. So, I don't think there are any surprises there. The challenge now is how do we get back on track. And part of what we're doing is to make sure that we've got the staffing in place to make sure we can address that backlog, particularly when we know that the staff at the moment are already exhausted. We published the fact that, actually, we've invested £0.25 billion in training new people, something that they missed out entirely from the English plan, and I think it's really important that we understand that we can't address this backlog without the right skills and the right people to help us out.

Thank you for your answer, Minister. I would of course understand that you were put in a very difficult position when you became the health Minister, because your predecessor left the position in a very, very difficult state. We were in a difficult position well before we entered the pandemic, and I appreciate the difficult task that you've now got in front of you, Minister.

When I talked about targets being met, you referred to, 'No-one's meeting targets; targets aren't met around the world', but these are targets that you brought forward yourself—as I understand it, but correct me if I'm wrong—to health boards just in recent months, or certainly last year, to make sure that targets were met by January and February just gone, as I outlined. So, I think it's completely reasonable for me to ask have those targets been met and to understand the position in that regard.

You have talked about the new figures for waiting times coming out tomorrow, and I understand that's of course the case. As it stands at the moment, the last figures published show us nearly 50,000 patients in Wales are waiting over two years for treatment—over two years for treatment. And that figure is double—double—that of people waiting in the entirety of England, and England has a population 18 times the size of Wales. So, can I ask you—and this goes back to my earlier point about you being put in a very difficult position and we were in a difficult position before we entered the pandemic—can you explain how this utterly dire comparison ever came into being in the first place?

I can explain it. And first of all I'd like to correct you on something, and that is that actually we were working through that challenging backlog. In fact, we only had 9,000 people waiting for 36 weeks prior to the pandemic. And, yes, we set out some targets, but, actually, that was before delta hit us and before omicron hit us and before BA2 hit us. So, all of those things of course are going to throw out whatever plans that we had. We had to divert people to make sure that people had the booster in order to protect them. It makes perfect sense that, when you're confronted with that kind of situation, you change tack and you try and do the best you can under the circumstances.

And I can explain why our waiting lists are longer than in England. First of all, we include diagnostics and therapy in the way we count; we include follow-up appointments after diagnostic tests—again, not something they include in England. We count people if they are transferred between consultants and they start a new pathway. So, all of those are good reasons why actually we count in a far more honest way, I think—an open and transparent way—than they do in England.

Peredur Owen Griffiths on behalf of Plaid Cymru. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Deputy Minister, last month, Wales recorded its worst ever results for mental health provision for young people. Your own figures showed that 78 per cent of patients referred to specialist child and adolescent mental health services were left waiting for over four weeks for their first appointment. I hope you agree that that is unacceptable. I would like to hear what steps have been taken to improve matters. I'd also like to hear more about the commitment in the co-operation agreement on testing the sanctuary model. This would support young people in crisis or with an urgent mental health issue by providing community facilities run by trained third sector staff, with clear referral pathways into NHS services if needed. Diolch. 

Thank you, Peredur, for that question. And as I said in response to Andrew R.T. Davies, of course I'm concerned that we've got young people waiting longer than they should. I do think that the waiting times situation is distorted slightly by Cardiff and the Vale. As I said to Andrew, two thirds of the children who are waiting in Wales are actually on the waiting list in Cardiff and the Vale. But we are taking a wide range of steps to bring waiting times down. We've made it very clear to all health boards that we expect them to take action to reduce waiting times. We are backing that up with funding, for which we're expecting to see developed plans setting out how they will bring waiting times down. I think it's very important to recognise too, though, that lots of the young people who are referred to specialist mental health services won't actually need a specialist service, and that's why we're also investing in those lower level services so that we can intervene much more quickly. It would be really helpful if all Members could encourage their constituents who contact them to take advantage of that lower level support that is available, because, unfortunately and understandably, some families do see specialist CAMHS as the gold ticket, really, and we really want families to access the support earlier on. I should say as well that, as well as the steps that health boards are taking to reduce waiting times, they should all have measures in place to make sure that young people are triaged appropriately, so that, if young people's needs change, they will be seen more quickly.

You asked about the commitment in the Labour-Plaid Cymru co-operation agreement. As you've highlighted, that commitment is to test sanctuary provision for young people in Wales. We currently have sanctuary provision for adults, but none for young people, and the development of those models are very important as part of our crisis care pathway for children and young people. So, as part of the agreement, we will be taking forward those pilots in different parts of Wales, so that we can examine them. But I should be very clear as well that what we want is for young children and young people not to be reaching crisis point, and that's why we are investing so much money and also focusing so much effort on our whole system reform, so our whole-school approach to mental health, and there's been another £12 million for that announced just today. That links to the early help and enhanced support in our NEST/NYTH initiative. So, the numbers we expect to use the sanctuary provision will be small, and we should be aiming for them to be even smaller, because we don't want young people's difficulties escalating.

Thank you for that response, Deputy Minister.

Very soon, Ukrainians will be arriving in Wales in significant numbers as the UK finally pulls its finger out and does its bit for refugees resulting from Putin's aggression. Understandably, many of these people fleeing their homeland will be traumatised as a result of what they have experienced in the last month, and will require specialist help to deal with what they have seen and experienced. There will be children fleeing Ukraine. Can you update the Senedd about the preparations that have been undertaken ahead of the arrival of Ukrainian refugees? These poor people have already been let down by the Tory Government due to the slow and abject response to the refugee crisis. I hope they will not be let down once again when they arrive on these shores. Diolch.

Thank you, Peredur. We've all been horrified by what we are seeing, and the trauma that people are experiencing in Ukraine is unthinkable, really. I'm pleased that we are taking a different approach in Wales with our supersponsor programme, which will mean that, when Ukrainian refugees arrive in Wales, they will be linked up with appropriate services. We'll be making sure that they register with a GP, and they'll be able to access all mainstream health services. That will include mental health support. The health support for those arriving in Wales will be provided in line with the guidance that we issued in 2018 on the health and well-being of asylum seekers and refugees. I'm also pleased to report that we've already translated materials into Ukrainian and Russian to support the mental health of those arriving from Ukraine on initial stabilisation, which will be really important when people are traumatised. You can't expect people to come in and be ready to have therapy; they're going to have to be feeling safe and stabilised. So, that's been done, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have also published specific support materials to help with stabilisation during the initial resettlement phase. We've also got our CALL mental health helpline—that's also available to support people arriving in Wales and their families, and CALL has access to something called Language Line, which means that, if somebody wants to access services through a language like Russian or Ukrainian, they'll be able to do so.