Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 1:57 pm on 11 May 2022.
Minister, I'd like to welcome your comments today in terms of some of the additional investment taking place to see waiting times reduce, and you referred to your planned care recovery plan as well, which I would hope would be beneficial to some of my residents in north Wales. Certainly, this is very timely, because we do continue to see an administration presiding over some of the worst records we've seen in our health service, with one in five people in Wales on a waiting list, compared to one in nine across the border, and one in four people expecting to wait over a year for treatment, compared to one in 20 across the border. Again, what this does is it feeds into a lack of trust, perhaps, from many of my residents, in being able to see targets being achieved, because so many targets in the past have not been achieved. Of course, behind each of those statistics I just quickly read out is a person in pain who needs support quickly. Carolyn Thomas referred to a case from her, and many of us have very similar cases in our inboxes every day. So, Minister, what assurances can I give to my constituents today that are waiting on those waiting lists that those targets will be met, and that that trust can be built back up so they can have that elective surgery met as quickly as possible?