Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 12 July 2022.
Thank you for the explanation on the tie, First Minister. It's always good to have a bit of good news in this Chamber. But there is another way, because as we've seen in England with two-year waits, those figures peaked at 23,000 waiting two years or more out of a population of 57 million; they now stand at 12,000, or just over 12,000. I accept the pressures on the NHS and staff in particular after what has been a very challenging two to two and a half years, and the continued incidences of COVID and the effect that has on the workforce, but, clearly, if one part of the United Kingdom with a very large population can pull those two-year waits down, yet regrettably here in Wales, where we have a population of 3 million, we're seeing just under 70,000 people waiting, why hasn't the Welsh Government adopted the surgical hub model that the Royal College of Surgeons have talked about, which clearly has worked in England, where there are 91 centres? More are required, I accept that, but the figures don't lie, First Minister. Their numbers are coming down, ours are going up. As I said, we need to offer people hope. So, can you give us a map out of the despair that many people feel at the moment of being stuck on this waiting list that just seems to go in one direction?