5. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Planned Care Recovery Plan

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:02 pm on 26 April 2022.

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Photo of Rhun ap Iorwerth Rhun ap Iorwerth Plaid Cymru 4:02, 26 April 2022

(Translated)

That's the reality of the situation, and that tells us so much about the failure of one Minister after another to put the health and care services of Wales on the sustainable foundations that we need. What the pandemic has done is to show just how unsustainable things were. If it is the Minister's intention to take us back to how things were prior to the pandemic, well, God help us.

I will go through some of the elements of the statement today. I'm pleased that we have had this statement and that this plan is in place. I agree with much of the narrative that we've heard from the Minister—the need to provide the right treatment in the first instance; the need to provide care as close to home as possible—but there are many questions arising as to how, exactly, some of these pledges are to be delivered.

If we're talking about prioritising increasing capacity within the health service, it is a major concern of mine that we are not talking about increasing capacity within health and care services here, because we have to think of these are two halves of the same walnut. One chief executive of a health board told me during the pandemic, when the Minister was making some funding available to the health service, that he would prefer to see the money going to care services because that's where the problem is. We do have to think about the process of recovery post pandemic as a challenge for health and care services.

In terms of prioritising diagnosis and treatment and introducing some new targets, I welcome the fact that there are targets. I am very disappointed with the level of ambition in terms of cancer targets. To be fair, it does reflect the situation that we are in, but we have never reached that target of 75 per cent to start treatment within 62 days. All that's happening is that's being increased from 75 to 80 per cent, and I can't understand how the Minister will be able to achieve that target either without having a cancer plan, which everyone other than the Welsh Government seems to be calling for. 

In terms of the broader targets—