Next week, we begin the new Senedd term with opportunities to scrutinise and hold the Welsh Government and New First Minister to account.

A lot has changed in Welsh Politics over the last six months, so I hope the Welsh Government can begin to tackle the major issues that hard working families so desperately want addressed.

Sadly, one thing that doesn’t seem to be changing is the state of our Welsh NHS. 

Decades of mismanagement from Labour Ministers have led to deep financial difficulty within Health Boards resulting in the Auditor General for Wales revealing that every health board has breached their duty to break even.

While the Welsh Government has argued that it has put more and more money into our health service, it is clear that this money is not being allocated effectively.

I firmly believe that we need a root and branch assessment of our NHS funding so we can ensure that every pound is spent effectively, and money is prioritised for frontline delivery.

Only then can we see a meaningful reduction in our NHS waiting lists which see 1 in 5 people in Wales waiting.

In August, official statistics revealed that waiting lists have increased to new records for five months in a row now.

It is also concerning that almost 1,600 people are currently fit to leave Welsh hospitals but have yet to be discharged.

This means that these bed spaces are being taken up when they could be allocated to those in real need.

A major contributor to this problem is the lack of social care provision to enable patients to return home safely. The Welsh Government need to do more with our councils to address this.

All of this does lead me to question how effective the New First Minister will be considering waiting lists spiralled under her watch. I certainly hope to be proved wrong for the sake of the people of Wales.

Let us not forget that behind the statistics there are real people struggling with illnesses and conditions that are hurting their quality of life.

None of us hold our frontline staff responsible for this at all, we have the utmost respect for them. They work tirelessly and against rising odds to make sure that the people of Wales get the treatment they need, but the systems they have to work in are clearly broken and need to be fixed as soon as possible.