7. Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on recruitment to the Wales cardiac clinical lead role? OQ64026

NHS Wales Performance and Improvement is currently reviewing its clinical leadership roles as part of a wider organisational redesign. Approval has been granted to appoint an interim national clinical lead for cardiology, with the post due to be advertised by April this year.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. As you'll be well aware, the Wales cardiac clinical lead role has been vacant since October 2025. Clinical leads are fundamental to deliver high-quality, consistent care and safeguard patient safety all across Wales. They provide a real-world insight into how services operate and patient care complexities, including risk management, clinical workflows and the practical application of policy. Without national clinical oversight, Wales risks fragmented planning, inconsistent adoption of evidence-based practice and slower progress on safety and quality. There are more than 400,000 people in Wales currently living with cardiovascular disease, Cabinet Secretary, and 63,000 of those within my own local health board of Aneurin Bevan.

So, can the Cabinet Secretary please confirm that improving outcomes in patient safety for those affected by cardiovascular disease remains a priority for the Welsh Government, and that the cardiac clinical lead role will now be progressed at pace? I appreciate the date that you just gave, Cabinet Secretary. And it's not just the cardiac role that is vacant; the Wales clinical lead for musculoskeletal health role has also not been filled. So, can you please provide an update on recruitment for this job as well, given that nearly 1 million people in Wales live with arthritis and MSK conditions here? Thank you so much.

I hope the Member will be happy to hear the date I gave in relation to the appointment of the cardiology clinical lead. The broader point is this, though: NHS performance and improvement is a redesigned organisation. It has evolved from the NHS Wales Executive and the entire purpose of that redesign was to point the resources and the expertise available in NHSPI to the Government's priorities for the NHS. And necessarily, in making that change, as you would probably expect, there is a process, then, of realigning that capability and resource within NHSPI, so that it can focus in in a laser-like way on all of those priorities. So, we are in the process of that happening at the moment. It's obviously being done within NHSPI. So, making sure those clinical leadership roles are focused on where we need the improvement to be is critical to that. That's the process that's under way. I'm confident it's the right thing to do. I also know that there will be organisations that are concerned that that reorganisation is under way. What I would say is that it's being done in a strategic way and I'm confident that it will lead to us being able to support the system better than we've been able to do in the past.

Finally, question 8, Buffy Williams.