I would like to thank my colleague Joel James for tabling this important debate today. It also is a timely debate, coming as it does during Love Your Liver Awareness Month, as well as during a liver disease public health emergency. We know that the number of people aged 65 and under dying from liver disease has grown by a staggering 400 per cent. Nine out of 10 of those deaths are preventable. It is therefore vital that we do all we can to ensure that nobody dies unnecessarily from liver disease. As a former trustee and now a patron of Brynawel Rehab, I want to focus my contribution on alcohol-related liver disease.

Alcohol-related liver disease rose by nearly a third between 2019 and 2021, overwhelmingly due to alcohol-related liver disease, according to the latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics. Alcohol-related liver disease accounts for nearly two thirds of all liver diseases, and a fifth of adults in Wales consume alcohol in ways that could be harmful to their liver. Despite these shocking facts, we have a real shortage of alcohol care teams across Wales. Seventy per cent of local health boards do not have alcohol care teams in place seven days a week. We therefore have a postcode lottery in access to specialist care and prevention support. Where seven-day service provision and alcohol care teams exist, we see dramatic improvements in health outcomes. In the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, they provide a seven-day service, and despite the health board having the highest per capita hospital admissions for liver disease in Wales, they have one of the lowest mortality rates. Sadly, my own health board, Swansea Bay University Health Board, has the highest recorded mortality rate for liver disease in Wales.

Over the past two decades, we have seen a 60 per cent rise in alcohol-related liver disease diagnosis, and the diagnosis rate is three times higher in the most deprived parts of Wales compared to the most affluent areas, as said earlier. Surely, if we are to tackle alcohol-related liver disease, we must ensure that every part of Wales has access to seven-day alcohol care teams. We must invest in specialist liver nurses and doctors, and we must roll out best practice across every health board.

For example, a doctor in Cwm Taf is doing excellent work on opportunistic fibroscanning of the general public, as well as within the prison population. A FibroScan is a simple, painless and non-invasive procedure used to accurately assess the health of the liver. During the scan, a probe is placed on the surface of the skin. This can detect liver scarring or fibrosis, which can ultimately lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. Opportunistic fibroscanning has been proven, in numerous studies, to increase early diagnosis, especially in those at high risk of advanced liver disease, and, as a result, increased longer term survival rates. We should be replicating the work under way in Cwm Taf across all health boards and in all settings.

Let us, during this dry January and Love Your Liver Awareness Month, commit to ending deaths due to alcohol-related liver disease. I urge Members to support this motion. Diolch yn fawr.