Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:18 pm on 10 January 2023.
I'm grateful to the Minister for her full statement this afternoon. I think all of us, on all sides of the Chamber and whatever our political differences may be, have a great well of gratitude to everybody who's working in the current circumstances across the national health service and in local government providing social care as well. I think we all recognise the enormous pressures that are on the national health service. We debated earlier, during First Minister's questions, the impact of austerity on the national health service and the ability of the service to respond, given successive issues around funding in the last decade or so. But you also said, in answer to, I think, Rhun ap Iorwerth, that the service itself has got to change to reflect changes in society and changes in need. I'd be interested, at the height of this winter crisis, if you could identify the issues that you're dealing with today that are long-term issues and aren't the short-term issues that we see creating the headlines, and how you believe we should be addressing those fundamental structural issues in the national health service as it approaches its seventy-fifth birthday.