Mr. Bernard Gloster:

I certainly hope I will. As I said to the Deputy last week, I do not have my sights set anywhere else.

I also said last week that the Deputy should have been on the interview board with questions like that. The Secretary General adequately represented him.

I said last week, in pretty straightforward terms, that one has to quantify and back up all the big numbers. To get back down to the basics for any individual patient or member of the public, the critical issues are access and urgent care. If people's experience in those areas is not improving, I will not have done a good job. It is as simple as that. That does not mean I can fix it all tomorrow and I do not think anybody expects that. I made the point last week that when many people are referred for specialist services, that is a good thing. Their health is being attended to. There are many new clinical technologies and innovations. The issue for me is the length of time people are waiting, not the number of people. We talk every week about the 800,000 people on the waiting list. That does not mean anything. What really means something is how long they are on the waiting list. We aim to shorten that time this year. It is a 10% global figure, which some might say is not ambitious but I think it is. The goal is to shorten that time and decrease the number of people waiting in emergency departments. There will be an issue if those experiences are not better. Many other experiences are good, as the Deputy said. When people get in to the system, the quality is good. When people go to enhanced community care, the quality of the intervention is good. Life expectancy is better. Chronic disease and deaths from chronic disease are reducing. The reality is that if people's experience is not improving, then I will not have done a good job.