Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:37 pm on 25 January 2023.
We know from these debates and from our own experience, Dirprwy Lywydd, that the pressures on the NHS are immense. It is often a very reactive service of necessity in many ways because, obviously, the NHS has to cope with what is coming at it, and often, what is coming at it is extremely demanding on every last bit of its resource. But we also know, and as Jane Dodds said, we do need, hopefully, some degree of consensus and agreement in terms of some of the ways of dealing with these challenges. We all know that we do need to be more preventative. And despite these day-to-day pressures, it is necessary to get heads above parapets and look at how we can be more long term and preventative, but also deal with current pressures, because a lot of the health prevention agenda will deal with the current issues as well as the longer term.
I would just like to highlight one example of links that can be made to deal with these matters and that is park runs. It's an amazing, world-wide, free phenomenon. In Newport, at 9 o'clock on a Saturday morning, every Saturday morning, we often have several hundred people out running, aged from eight to 80, all degrees of physical fitness, often people who are running for rehabilitation having gone through or are going cancer treatment, for example, and many links made to other preventative groups—couch to 5K, or working with Move, which specifically relates to how exercise can help with cancer during and after treatment. Lots of really, really good links.
It is addictive, Dirprwy Lywydd, as many others will know when they do the park run. I hope to do my one hundred and fiftieth this Saturday in Newport. I also hope to be on the junior park run on the Sunday morning with my grandson, who's eight-years old, who is becoming addicted to the junior park run as well. People who help organise these park runs—and we have some 47 now in Wales—what they want is to link more strongly with the health sector. So, we do have links, we have GP practices prescribing the park run, and I think it's something like 24 per cent of park runs that have those links with practices. But we know that many more GP practices could have these links. Social prescribing is so important, and this is a significant part of that. The Welsh Government is out to consultation on all forms of social prescribing, and I do believe that that consultation could consider the collaboration that exists between park runs and their key stakeholders, including public health boards, third sector organisations, national governing bodies and practitioners.
We need to utilise all possible sources of help with the preventative agenda, Dirprwy Lywydd, and this, I believe, is an important part of that. There is such commitment and goodwill to these park runs, Dirprwy Lywydd. It is an amazing public health initiative, and it's one that we can utiliise more fully in meeting these challenges that we all acknowledge.