Thanks very much, Russell, and thanks for your understanding that this is a very tough negotiation and a very difficult time for all of those working in the NHS.

You asked about the confidence in the pay review body process. I think there are things that can change. I'm obviously very keen to hear what the NHS unions think in terms of what could be improved, but one thing that is very clear to me is that, when the pay review body took the temperature of inflation, they took it at the beginning of the year. And that was at a time when inflation was at about 6 per cent or so, and it was just after the war started in Ukraine, so we hadn't seen the impact that early in the year. So, I think there is a really good case to be made for making sure that you can somehow perhaps have some kind of mechanism whereby if it goes above a certain thing, you can revisit. So, I think there is room for us to think around some very practical issues like that.

In terms of stabilising the workforce, you'll be aware that more people work in the NHS today than have ever worked before. We are still recruiting and, tomorrow, I will be issuing a statement in terms of how Health Education and Improvement Wales will be training the future workforce, in terms of what they have planned in the next years.

In terms of the minimum service levels, I think we've got to be absolutely clear what we're talking about here. The people who go into the NHS are not irresponsible people; they are people who are committed to public service, and they are the ones who help to determine what the derogations are. So, you won't see people, irrespective of what's going on in the strikes, walking out of the ITU service, or those areas that are absolutely critical for care. So, effectively, those derogations are the minimum levels of service. But I think it's absolutely right to make sure that people understand that the right to strike is something that has been hard fought for, and something that we as a Labour Party certainly sign up to.

In terms of surgical hubs, I think there is a bit of confusion around this, because the definitions are slightly different. So, you could argue, for example, that Abergele, which is a ring-fenced place, where it's not knocked out by what happens in relation to A&E, is a surgical hub. We haven't labelled it as such, but that, effectively, is what it is. We now have the Vanguard centre in Cardiff, which is a new centre, and is definitely ring-fenced and won't be knocked out by A&E. So, that's my definition of what a surgical hub is. I'm not quite sure what yours is, but that's mine—is it going to be knocked out by things just flowing through the doors, and will it knock out the planned care? And obviously, there's a new facility in Llanelli, which is really up and running, and only just opened. So, we are doing things, and we've got, again, a ring-fenced facility that won't be knocked out by the urgent care that comes through the door.

I think you've got to be really careful here as well, though, Russell, just to understand that it is so much easier if you live in a big city to have two hospitals, where one is A&E and the other one you can have as separate, then it doesn't get knocked out by what comes through the front door. We're already doing that. In Cardiff, we can do it. You've got the Heath, but then you've got Llandough, where they can just get on with things. In Swansea, they've effectively got three hospitals and now they're starting to say, 'Look, I'll tell you what, most of the orthopaedic we'll put into Neath, so we'll keep it away.' There are always going to be complex cases where you're going to need—. For example, if you've got somebody who needs a hip operation, but they've also got a heart problem, you can't do that in a ring-fenced hub because you need somebody who's an expert in hearts quite near. So, the complex cases are always going to have to be in the big hospitals. The problem we have in Wales is that we've got lots—it's not a problem, it's a good thing—we've got lots and lots of hospitals, but because of the geography of the area you can't have more than one. So, if you want more planned care centres, we would have to switch off some of the A&E. That's very difficult when you live in such a spread-out area. In England, because populations tend to live in big cities and big urban centres, it's much easier for them to whip through things with those separations. That is much more difficult in Wales.