Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:25 pm on 19 September 2018.
Thank you for your good wishes—I'll take it as a backhanded compliment, Cabinet Secretary. [Laughter.] Cabinet Secretary, we know full well that one of the big issues that arrive in the winter pressure months in particular is access to beds within the Welsh NHS. I'm sure, through the summer recess, you and your officials have been working with health boards the length and breadth of Wales over winter preparedness plans. What confidence can you give people working within the Welsh NHS, and the people of Wales, that you have addressed the crisis in bed availability that exists in some health boards across Wales, so that we will have some respite from some of the backlog that happens in accident and emergency departments because people cannot progress through the hospital through lack of beds within district general hospitals across Wales?