Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:19 pm on 29 June 2022.
Thank you, Altaf, for your intervention. I think it's not something we specifically looked into in our committee report, but I think, from our perspective, what's important to us is that the backlog comes down. We know, we’ve heard from other Members’ contributions this afternoon, that we can talk about statistics, but it's about the real impact on people's lives. Again, the Senedd research team did a great job in actually demonstrating some of the very issues that people were dealing with, and their families, in terms of being on a waiting list.
But I think one of the other issues—. I think Jane Dodds mentioned the issue about funding being returned, interestingly, to Welsh Government, and Audit Wales pointed this out as well, of course. But the question is: why is that? Why? Because they can’t spend the money. Why can’t they spend the money? Is that a capacity issue? They don’t have the sufficient capacity to perhaps deliver that.
But arguably, I think, the greatest challenge of this Senedd is bringing back down that waiting backlog. It’s the Government’s responsibility and it’s this Senedd’s responsibility to hold the Government to account in that regard. I heard the Minister’s contribution—a few examples of specific examples within health boards. But what I think you didn’t say too much on, Minister, was perhaps on what could be done at a more regional level, perhaps, as well. So, we can see that there are individual examples within health boards, but there is that issue of health boards working together, and what could be done in terms of bringing forward that best practice, but regional health boards working collaboratively across each other as well.
But I do appreciate your sincerity, Minister. I appreciate your honesty in terms of the disappointing cancer rate figures. Keep on being honest with us, Minister, about the position, and I think that is helpful in that regard. But I think what is important is that we can’t simply aim to return to where we were back in March 2020. We’ve got to use this opportunity to reset, and we need to see sustainable investment in services, the workforce, the estate and infrastructure, a renewed focus on innovation, genuine and sustainable service transformation, and progress on prevention and tackling health inequalities to make sure that no-one is left behind. Diolch yn fawr iawn.