Thank you for the list of questions. I want to start with the point about the impact on families. In terms of meeting families it's hard to understate the impact on those families, not at a single point in time, and different people are on different points in their progress, in either being able to move on or not. Of course, different people with differing responsibilities. It's one of the real and significant difficulties that we face, not just as representatives, but of course in terms of the service and indeed the improvement action that we're taking around it. But that's definitely been added to by the direct engagement with families and that's one of the most encouraging things, I think, about the improvement action taken to date, that it's proactively looking for more feedback from people using the service in the here and now, as well as the engagement of families who have come forward and a number of whom will now go through the clinical review process at various points in time.

It's been useful, I think, with the two events that have taken place, one in Merthyr and one in Llantrisant, to actually ask women to come forward to explain their own views on recent practice too. So, I think those are encouraging. I, too, look forward to seeing the HIW report on their recent visit to Prince Charles, as well, to provide that level of assurance and honesty about the level of progress being made.

On that, your point about the way that this has been reported—well, of course, I'm not in charge of the way that other people report it, but what the panel themselves said was that there has been good progress and that they are now cautiously optimistic about the future, and that's the point. So, there isn't a clean bill of health saying that everything is fine and that no further work is needed, and, equally, part of the optimism is when it comes to progress that has been made, but, equally, some of the caution is about the fact that you need to see some of those points sustained. So, on a number of your questions about both the progress against the royal college review recommendations, on the pace of progress that's commented on in the report on page 35, as well as, then, page 37 and 36, about the maternity improvement plan. And there's something about the honesty of how fast the health board has moved and, equally, where there has been progress, about wanting to see that becoming genuinely sustained and embedded. So, the panel themselves have said that whilst they recognise that a number of recommendations have been delivered, that's why they want to come back themselves to look in the next six to 12 months to make sure they're still there. And on some of them, they recognise they are a work in progress.

So, on one of your questions about the pace of that progress, the honest answer is both 'yes' and 'no'. Yes, I'm satisfied they're making progress and they're doing it at a pace that is as quick as possible. However, I'm not particularly satisfied in that I would always want them to be able to move faster, but I have to balance the sort of demand that I push into the system, as it were, in that the overarching point has to be that they don't do anything to compromise the safety and the quality of the service, and the improvements they're making. And I certainly don't want to do anything that artificially makes people think back to how we got into some of this mess in the first place. People are looking for speed and looking to have a headline message that is convenient, as opposed to doing something that makes the best possible difference for our staff and the people that they are working with and serving.

In terms of your point about supporting needs during clinical reviews and the speed at which that's being put in place, then, yes, I am encouraged, particularly having had conversations over the last week directly with families as well as people from the health board and the improvement panel. And whilst I would have wanted that to have been in place before, the deliberate choice to not start until January was a difficult one because, on the one hand, I was particularly keen for those reviews to start sooner rather than later. There was then an honest challenge about whether you write out to people in the middle of December, just before the festive season, and tell them that their reviews were about to start, and that's not a simple choice to make. I think, on balance, it was the right thing to delay it until January before starting that process, so letters have gone out at the start of January. But also, that then has given more time to put support in place, and that's about doing what is right and what is appropriate, and not doing something that is fast. And equally, it's then important to be honest.

I hope that the second report from the independent panel does provide that assurance—that there is real honesty in the steps that have been taken and how long it will take before we can give the sign-off that the culture and the progress has been embedded, rather than simply looking to do something that is convenient either for myself or members of the health board. And I do have confidence in the members of the board, from the executive members, the interim chief executive and the new medical director and nurse director, and there's commentary in the report about the impact that those two people have had in helping to change positively some of the culture that was difficult for a range of staff, but also when I met staff they were positive about the leadership of the service and the difference in the meetings was palpable from the previous meeting that I'd had with staff. But there was also confidence in the chair and the independent members, and they take very seriously the failure that took place, and they've absolutely taken that to heart. And they've recognised that some of the ways in which the information was presented to them or not presented to them was simply not acceptable, and there is real rigour as well as determination, and I think capacity and capability within the board and its independent members, including the chair, to do the right thing.