Well, there's a wide range of questions in there, Llywydd; I'll try and deal with the points as they've been provided. The starting point is that, of course we know there's extra pressure that comes over winter, and that the start of January is the most difficult time of all, with the pressure that comes in from the end of one festive period, people have put off care, people have gone home in the middle of that, who then require further treatment. It's not just in our hospitals either—this is a real challenge in primary care as well. And what we see in Hywel Dda, with the cancellation of inpatient activity, is a symptom of that whole-system pressure. And in terms of describing the whole-system pressure, nine out of the last 11 months in 2019 that have been reported on were record months for activity—nine out of 11 reported months. That's the scale of demand that is coming into our system. And, with respect, last winter, no-one in this room would have predicted that that is the activity that we would have seen.

What is being done is a plan for winter within each health board. I have no idea where the idea that there is somehow no plan for Betsi has come from, and it's rather difficult for me to deal with works of fiction and imagination. But there is absolutely a winter plan across north Wales—it has been agreed, not just within the health service, but direct matters under the health service control, and their share, which every health board, including north Wales, has received of the £30 million winter moneys, but the joint plan undertaken by the regional partnership board for what to do across the whole system. That does include extra bed capacity—and I announced before the break that that amounts to about 400 additional beds across the system. That's the size of a large district general hospital of additional capacity that's been put into the system. That includes additional capacity within Hywel Dda.

In terms of the conversations taking place with staff, the BMA made their comments on the way to a clinical summit that my officials are holding today—which includes the RCN and other stakeholders—to examine the reality of where we are, the response, and what more is possible at a national level. And, in terms of where Hywel Dda are, they are in a position now where they are seeing more progress being made on discharging patients to at least three of the four sites, because of the work they're doing and because of the implementation of the winter plan, but more than that, because of the relationships that exist between the health board and local authorities. And without those relationships being in a much better place than in previous winters, we'd be unlikely to see those discharges taking place.

It is a whole-system problem and it is a whole-system response in the here and now, and the continuing reform that I've regularly spoken about that is required to make sure we have additional capacity, and domiciliary and residential care, which includes health and social care working together to provide that. And it is also about how we choose to use the system as we continue to see more demand driven into our system. We need to look again at how we deliver and how we design it. And given all the peaks and troughs of activity, we need to recognise that we're unlikely to see a significant fall-back in demand. It's about how we deal with that demand to make sure that patient safety isn't compromised, and that is exactly why it was the right thing for Hywel Dda to do, with all of the different risks involved, to make sure that they prioritise people with the greatest need first.