Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:48 pm on 23 March 2022.
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?