Before I move on to the experience of patients, I want to put on record my thanks to the great staff at Betsi, and also put on record that my brother and sister are both nurses in the NHS as well. When I speak to staff—whether it be doctors, nurses, midwives, support staff, admin staff—the story is always the same: they are trying their level best, day in and day out, but they're just not being supported by this Government, who have not taken the drastic action that we need to see in north Wales. For example, healthcare professionals who work at Wrexham Maelor have said, and I'll quote:

'There just aren't enough people on the rota. The choice is between going into clinic or leaving very junior doctors to cover a ward on their own.'

The front-line staff in our hospitals continue to do their best under difficult circumstances every day. Minister, I urge you to give them the support they need to do their job well.

In my contribution today, Llywydd, I'd like to focus on three issues that I believe are the drivers behind today's debate, the first being patient experience. The fact of the matter is that the lack of support from the Government means that the health board can't deliver services properly. Anyone who's visited healthcare settings in my region in north Wales and sat down with patients knows just how bad things can get.

Referral to treatment times in north Wales are among the worst across the country. One in four patients are waiting over a year for treatment, with 18,000 patients waiting more than two years. I'll take a constituent case of Mrs Jones from my region; Mrs Jones has been waiting for a hip replacement for more than a year. In that time, she's received little to no communication from the health board, and during this year, Mrs Jones has suffered with substantial pain. She's had to give up driving, she is stuck at home in pain. Had previous health Ministers gotten to grips with the issue, Mrs Jones would not be in the situation she finds herself in now.

Secondly, I'd like to focus on ambulance and A&E waiting times. The performance at A&E waiting rooms across north Wales is simply not good enough. In April 2022, Betsi recorded the worst A&E waiting times in Wales, with just over half of patients being seen within four hours. And the story's even worse at specific hospitals, at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd and at Wrexham Maelor, where the figures are below 35 per cent of patients seen in four hours, and 40 per cent respectively at Maelor, with one in five patients—listen to this; one in five patients—having to wait for more than 12 hours. Twelve hours in A&E; that's an emergency. Twelve hours.

The failure to deal with the pressure on our A&E departments adds significant pressure to our ambulance services. In April 2017, 79 per cent of ambulances would arrive within eight minutes for those important red calls. Five years on, in 2022, after years of special measures and intervention from this Government, that figure now is at 46 per cent, a dramatically worse position than in 2017. And these are real people, waiting for those ambulances, in need of emergency medical attention. 

I'll give another example, another constituent case. Rev John Morgan from Kinmel Bay reached out to our north Wales office last week to share his experience. In the early morning at 3 a.m., Reverend Morgan experienced chest pains and called an ambulance. Six hours later, one arrived, and took him to wait outside A&E and he waited outside A&E for a further six hours. He was then placed on a trolley in the A&E department, where he was ignored. Despite being diabetic, he was not offered food. After a restless night in a cold A&E department with no blanket or pillow, he went to the bathroom to freshen up, but found there was no running water to even have a wash. Rev Morgan was then left waiting to receive his medication. After being left with nothing but a drink since lunchtime, he decided to self discharge at 5 p.m. In his own words, Rev Morgan said he felt the conditions in A&E were inhumane; he would rather die at home alone then go back into the hospital. Rev Morgan, Members, is 70 years old and a veteran, having served in the RAF for 25 years. Experiences like Reverend Morgan's are wholly unacceptable, but sadly, far too common.

I could go on to mention a handful of failures at Betsi: vascular services are a shambles, access to dental services is a lottery, GP surgeries are ending contracts with the health board. I'm sure Members will mention those today in the debate. The thing for me, Llywydd, that sums up this Welsh Government's failure to improve things at Betsi is the performance of the mental health services, which I'll end on today.

Only as recently as April, S4C's Y Byd ar Bedwar revealed patients were being denied in-patient treatment—being denied in-patient treatments that they needed. Staff are scared to come into work, and too frightened to speak out. This does not suggest there's been any progress at all since the special measures in 2015. It's almost unbelievable that the same health board that was responsible for the Tawel Fan scandal still hasn't learnt lessons. It's clear to me that taking Betsi out of those special measures was the wrong decision, and, just months before the Senedd election, it was certainly a political one. It's time to reverse the politically motivated decision taken by your predecessor, Minister, and take the radical action we need to see.

In closing, things have been in bad shape at Betsi for far too long, and it's the Welsh Labour Government who are to blame. Former captains Drakeford and Gething spent too much time rearranging deckchairs and not enough time deploying the lifeboats, with the current Minister being given captain of the Titanic after it's already split in half. With Welsh Labour failing to deliver adequate health services for the people of Wales, I propose it's time to slap a health warning on this Government. The side effects may include one in five people on waiting lists, 10,000 people waiting for more than 12 hours in A&E, over 70,000 people waiting more than two years for treatment, 42 per cent of cancer patients not starting treatment within two months, and a 50:50 chance of getting an ambulance in the time that you need it. It's time for change, and it's time for new solutions. Minister, I urge you to do what your predecessors couldn't, and tackle the issues at Betsi head on once and for all. Diolch yn fawr iawn.