Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:42 pm on 19 October 2022.
Can I thank James Evans for that intervention? I fully agree with James, and the point that I will try to make now is that it's not the likes of us, James, in suits sitting in this Chamber who make real change, it's people like Tassia. Tassia was gracious enough, Minister, to provide me with some thoughts on the letter you mentioned you sent to me on 14 October: with regard to pathways, the Welsh Government do have a series of optimised pathways, but there are concerns that there is no specific pathway for metastatic breast cancer, and we should be looking to address that. In terms of specialised nursing, I think we should be mindful—and I read the words of Tassia here—we should be mindful when stating it is not the Welsh Government's role to specify which conditions should benefit from dedicated specialist nursing support, because this is exactly what we do with other conditions.
Just briefly touching on the audit, I do think it is welcome that the audit has been announced, and the £11 million that you have announced today in the Chamber, but there will be some frustrations I know, from conversations I've had with campaigners, that it has taken perhaps too long.
I know I'm running out of time, so I will end with this, Presiding Officer: 277 metastatic breast cancer patients and care givers in Wales have signed Tassia's open letter, which we've all heard and agrees with the petition. Tassia and the other 14,105 people have signed a petition to do better. In my own words now, Presiding Officer, these statistics should be ringing in all of our ears around the Chamber, and of everyone involved in delivering services, the Minister and the wider Welsh Government and, of course, our health boards, who we all should be holding to account. Diolch yn fawr.