Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Minister, first of all, can I thank you very much indeed for the very speedy response you gave to the concerns I raised during the business statement last week?

You do need to—

I'm so sorry. How long have I been here?

You were too keen to thank the Minister there by far. Ask the question.

1. Will the Minister make a statement on mixed wards in hospitals? OAQ53568

Yes. The Welsh Government is committed to abolishing mixed-sex ward accommodation and to ensuring the safety, privacy and dignity of patients. All new hospital developments will be built to ensure single-sex accommodation, with guidance recommending a minimum of 50 per cent single bedrooms with en-suite facilities.   

Thank you very much. That's encouraging and—. Shall we take those thanks as read?

I was grateful to you for that quick response—it's great to get that. And Members will remember that I raised, in business statement last week, the very unfortunate situation of women experiencing miscarriage before 20 weeks being located on a mixed-sex ward in Swansea's Singleton Hospital. And it may well be a large ward—men down one end, women at the other, separated by a desk—but it's still a general surgery ward, and I don't know whether, in extremis, that division can always be observed. Your officials are looking at miscarriage services following the report published by Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales, a report quoting one woman as saying, 

'After a silent miscarriage I was given some information sheets on what I could do next—on a ward for the world to hear'.

Now, that report is six months old. This can still happen on ward 2 in Singleton Hospital. I'd be grateful if you could confirm when this practice will stop altogether.

The challenge about taking forward our work on having more appropriate services on miscarriage is one that I've charged officials to take forward with our health boards, and I'm more than happy to update Members on the detail of that work and when we can expect to see real, material differences. As we run through the work that I described in my first answer on changing the layout of wards to make sure we do have, generally, single-sex wards, with appropriate accommodation and the real dignity that all of us would expect, there's a rolling problem, because, actually, the position that you've described in Singleton is partly because we're changing accommodation in different parts of that hospital. But we do need to make sure that, wherever that accommodation is provided, it does have the essential dignity that all of us would expect for ourselves and our loved ones. But, as I say, on miscarriage services, I'm happy to provide the Chamber with an update.