Diolch yn fawr. Thank you to Altaf Hussain, who is my secret special adviser in the NHS, for bringing forward this short debate and for his recent invitation to Cwm Taf Morgannwg to meet with clinicians delivering those prehabilitation services. I very much look forward to our joint visit next month.

I recognise how important it is to help people get ready for their cancer treatment and for them to be in the best place possible in terms of condition for a good recovery. So, being referred with suspected cancer and then waiting, often in fear, as you've suggested, with a huge degree of uncertainty until the tests and the treatment come around is a really difficult experience for many people.

So, rather than wasting this time and leaving people to cope, we have an opportunity here to get them ready and to empower them to take some control. This is always something they can do, even if it's over a few weeks, to get themselves ready. Actions can include addressing the psychological impact of a diagnosis and developing some coping techniques and strategies. And as you've suggested, people can work on their nutrition and their fitness and their strength so that they are ready to face their treatment and have, as you both suggested, a better chance of recovery afterwards. So, if we can be alongside people, giving them that emotional support, encouraging and supporting people with appropriate changes to their lifestyle, then they'll have a better experience and a better chance of a good outcome.

Prehabilitation enables people with cancer to prepare for cancer treatment, maximising their ability to withstand the side effects. Evidence suggests that prehabilitation delivers better outcomes with fewer complications. If the impact of prehabilitation was achieved by a drug, we'd no doubt be prescribing it, so we need to work together to put this support in place, and that's why we've set a very clear expectation in the quality statement for cancer: prehabilitation and rehabilitation are key parts of that cancer pathway. Included within the quality statement, we've introduced 21 nationally agreed cancer pathways, and these set out how the various cancer-type pathways should function and what should be involved. They all involve prehabilitation at key points in the pathway.

I expect it to become a more common and standardised part of the cancer pathway over the next few years, as health boards develop new ways of working and the evidence base grows. But it's not easy, it's not just as simple as saying, 'Just do it.' The cancer clinical teams and the allied health professionals in particular are already under immense pressure, given the large increase in the number of people being referred for cancer. There's no extra money to throw at this, as we've already been providing every last bit of resource to supporting recovery in services.

That's why it's important that we look at whether we can scale access to prehabilitation through digital through digital services. The Wales Cancer Network has funded pilots, and we have those pilots under way in our health boards, in collaboration with the Bevan Commission, to see if digital solutions can help. The Wales Cancer Network has also appointed a lead medical clinician and a lead cancer allied health professional to help work on this over the next two years. The post will help co-ordinate and guide the health boards' efforts, so that we can put these services in place for more cancer pathways in more health boards in a way that's sustainable. This work will be overseen by an all-Wales cancer prehabilitation group, reporting to the Wales Cancer Network board, as part of the NHS executive.