Diolch, Presiding Officer. I'm going to talk at great speed because I have also promised to give a minute to Julie Morgan, to Janet Finch-Saunders and to Suzy Davies, and I have a lot to say on this subject.

It was a bank holiday weekend less than a year ago when Rachel knocked on her flatmate's bedroom door in the early hours of the morning and asked her to take her to hospital because she felt very ill. This vibrant 29-year-old had felt a little unwell the previous evening, but four hours later she was saying to her friend, 'I think I'm dying'. Rachel arrived at the Heath, and, after a few quick checks by the triage nurse, she was told that there was a five and a half hour wait to see a doctor, and that she should be okay and the best thing to do would be to go home, take some paracetamol and rest. In all, Rachel was in the accident and emergency department less than 30 minutes, but the awful truth was that Rachel was already in septic shock.

Her mum and dad, Bernie and Steve, decided on a whim to have a coffee near Rachel's flat and called her. Their beloved daughter managed to scream down the phone, and the distraught parents raced to her side. Ambulances were called for, and the first responding paramedic was rather offhand, refusing to let the sick woman lie down, because he couldn't take her blood pressure. The reality is that her blood pressure was now so low it was very difficult to discern, and that one fact, if nothing else, should have screamed a warning: 'This could be sepsis'. Rachel was taken to UHW, and in the resuscitation unit they told her and her family that she would need to be put into an induced coma, as she was in septic shock.

Rachel asked if septic shock was life-threatening, and the doctor responded to her and her family that, as she was being treated, it would be okay. Steve and Bernie never spoke to their daughter again. This very normal family had no real understanding what sepsis was, what septic shock meant, or what the possible outcomes were. Rachel was taken into theatre to have incisions in her arms and legs in order to relieve the pressure build-up. But, after the procedure, her family were told that Rachel would have to lose both of her legs and her right forearm. By then, they had learned how other sepsis survivors, like Jayne Carpenter, a nurse at the Royal Gwent, have coped with the loss of three limbs, and so they felt that agreeing to this surgery would still give Rachel a chance to have a good life and that she would want to fight for that.