2. Will the First Minister provide an update on the work the Welsh Government is doing to improve health services in Brecon and Radnorshire? OQ58044

Health services in Brecon and Radnor are the responsibility of Powys Teaching Local Health Board. The board continues to invest in capital improvements that produce advances in service efficiency as it restores essential and key services alongside the continuing need to care for patients affected by COVID-19.

I'd like to thank the First Minister for that answer. Many people across my constituency have contacted me in recent days and weeks who are very concerned about the long and lengthy waiting times in all the district general hospitals that serve the residents of my consistency. Many of them would like to see a district general hospital built within my constituency, or at least more services being delivered closer to home so they don't face that agonising wait in A&E departments due to staff shortages. First Minister, do you agree with me and many of my constituents who have contacted me in the recent days that, rather than squandering £16 million on more politicians in this place to discuss problems, that money would be far better spent on employing 642 entry level nurses across Wales? With many wards in my constituency closing—[Interruption.]

I really do need to hear the Member, and I'm sure the First Minister does also, so if the question can be heard in some degree of silence.

It's nice to hear so many Members agree with me, Llywydd. 

With many wards in my constituency closing due to staff shortages, surely that £16 million would be better spent addressing our workforce problems and not putting more bums on seats in here?

Well, Llywydd—[Interruption.]

Equally, I also want to hear the First Minister's response to that question, so if we can hear that in some silence, please.

Llywydd, thank you. The Member made a number of important points before he went off the rails into cheap-shot politics, which is of course far too often the distinguishing characteristic of his party. When he was making sensible points, he referred to the pressure that services are under in Powys, and that is absolutely true. He referred to the need to repatriate services to Powys. I imagine that he has welcomed, therefore, the repatriation of wet age-related macular degeneration services, previously provided by the Wye valley trust, now available in Brecon hospital and in Llandrindod Wells hospital. He'll have welcomed the fact that endoscopy day cases, as which, again, people used to have to travel outside Powys to get those services, are now available at both of those sites.

He referred to the need to invest in our staff, and I don't disagree with him there. So, I'm sure that he will have welcomed the fact that, since 2016, under a Labour Government here in Wales, there has been a 30 per cent increase in the staff of the Powys local health board. And he refers to waiting times, and we want to see waiting times improve right across Wales, but Powys's performance for people waiting 26 weeks for treatment from the point of referral was 93.6 per cent against a 95 per cent target. How much we wish that everywhere in Wales was served in that way. There were 174 people waiting more than 36 weeks for treatment in Powys in February this year, the month for which figures were last available, and that was 702 lower than February a year ago. So, on the substantive points the Member makes, I'm sure he will recognise that the board is working very hard and successfully to reduce waiting times for patients, to bring more services into the county and to be directly provided by the LHB, and that we go on as a Government investing considerable sums of capital investment to allow buildings such as the Llandrindod Wells County War Memorial Hospital to be further adapted so that more services can be provided close to people's homes.