It has already been pointed out that an estimated 7,000 people a year in Wales experience a stroke, and that can be the equivalent of a whole town having one every year. It takes on average, as has been said, 6 hours 35 minutes between stroke onset and arrival at hospital in Wales. Compare that with 3 hours 41 minutes in England, and 2 hours 41 minutes in Northern Ireland. There's been mention of this need for that golden hour. Some years ago, a relative of mine experienced a stroke, and in those days it was almost expected that it was going to be classed as urgent.

The sentinel stroke national audit programme data, which scores Welsh NHS responses to key indicators such as time to scan, time to treatment, time to admission to stroke units, highlights some concerning trends in north Wales hospitals. With the worst possible score of E, Wrexham and Ysbyty Glan Clwyd have seen no improvement in their SSNAP scores of D since 2021. In fact, Ysbyty Glan Clwyd took longer than an hour on average to scan stroke patients. When considering that stroke is the fourth leading cause of death, it comes as no surprise that I have constituents who really have a heightened level of anxiety about whether an ambulance would turn up on time and, if it did, how, then, would they proceed to have a scan.

Of the four-hour target for patients to be admitted to a stroke unit, just one hospital in Wales was within that timeframe, and according to the Stroke Association, the time it takes for patients to arrive at a hospital does impact on the time it takes patients to receive a scan. Patients in Wales are being scanned just over eight hours after their symptom onset. So, we've got to get patients into hospital faster and we need speedier scans.

Since 2015, this Welsh Labour Government has downgraded suspected stroke ambulance response times to amber, with no target time for arrival. England's ambulance services, which have a specific category for suspected stroke patients, had a mean response time of 47 minutes and 59 seconds. Here in Wales, amber calls are taking on average, one hour and 35 minutes to arrive with patients—that says 'on average'; I can tell you that I know of examples really recently, where, unfortunately, a constituent of mine passed away because, well, it was just too late. Any longer than 60 minutes, and harm, including brain damage, physical disability and mortality can increase significantly. By 2020, and pre pandemic, even the Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust stated that amber performance remains a concern. So, it's therefore reasonable to vote to instruct the Health and Social Care Committee to conduct a review into the benefits and challenges of recategorising strokes as red—immediately life-threatening calls under the clinical response model. And I speak as an elected Member where we have a greater number of old people, obviously, I'm speaking on behalf of my constituents in Aberconwy. That will provide a fair opportunity to hear from health boards and professionals, enabling this Welsh Parliament and your Government to make the best decision that is truly also the best for patients.

So, I've also got a question and an explanation, Minister, as to why there is no thrombectomy specialist in north Wales. There are only two employed, and they are both in Cardiff. Betsi Cadwaladr sends patients to Walton Hospital. As outlined by the Stroke Association's Saving Brains campaign, whilst thrombectomy could significantly reduce the chance of disabilities, like paralysis or blindness, it could save the NHS £47,000 over five years, per patient. Less than 1 per cent of stroke patients in Wales received a thrombectomy in 2021. So, it's not good enough. Surely, between us, we can agree to work with health boards to achieve better than that and establish a workforce plan so that north Wales has its own specialist too.

Yet again, we have fewer services than the south, and we're having to depend on England, but I will say that Walton is exceptionally good. Nonetheless, we've had devolution for nearly 25 years. Minister, as you can imagine, this is a debate that's very close to my colleagues on the Welsh Conservative benches, but it's also close to the hearts and minds of my constituents in Aberconwy, and many across Wales. I know that you listen to what we say here; please, on this one, really study the motion and do what you can to help our stoke victims. Thank you.