Hywel Dda University Health Board has well-progressed plans on a range of sites, including Parc y Scarlets—as we saw on ITV Wales news last night—a range of leisure centres across Carmarthenshire, and Bluestone in Pembrokeshire. Swansea Bay University Health Board has, with its two local authorities, identified leisure centres and the Bay Studios in Llandarcy. These are all in addition to the 350 beds that will be available at the new Grange University Hospital from April. And we know that north Wales has already identified Venue Cymru as one of its sites, with more to be confirmed in the days ahead. So, all health boards are developing equivalent capacity plans and specifications for a distributed model of additional bed capacity across Wales.

On critical care, we have already more than doubled the number of beds in Wales to 313. As of yesterday, occupancy of critical care units was about 40 per cent. Sixty-nine per cent of those people occupying beds either have suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19. We will continue with the rapid expansion of critical care bed numbers, which will be supported by the purchase of over 965 additional ventilators, with further options to purchase or manufacture ventilators being urgently explored.

I know that there are, quite understandably, continued concerns about the availability of personal protective equipment. Over the weekend, more than 600,000 additional FFP3 respirator masks were delivered to health boards for onward transmission to primary, community and hospital sites, as well as commissioned services, such as independent mental health hospitals and hospices. Further deliveries of PPE were also made on Monday and Tuesday of this week to the local authority joint community equipment stores for directors of social services to distribute within the social care sector. We have now deployed, from the Welsh Government pandemic stocks, more than five million pieces of PPE for use within our health and social care system.

The delivery to the joint stores is sufficient to enable each of Wales's 600-plus care homes to be provided with enough PPE to cover 200 individual interventions. A telephone and e-mail contact has been set up for the NHS and social services to use in an emergency if PPE supplies have been disrupted or there's been an unforeseen or unplanned surge in use. This is the point the First Minister referred to in questions earlier.

Whilst we face an unprecedented time and increasing demand on our health and care services, the response from our workforce has been humbling. We have and will continue to be innovative in meeting the demands placed upon us in the fight against COVID-19. A week ago, we asked our newly retired nurses and doctors to come back to the NHS and they have responded in their numbers. Already, over 1,300 health and social care professionals have responded to that call to return and serve the country.

Our students are also keen to support us. We're exploring ways to harness the energy and commitment of up to 3,760 medical, nursing, midwifery, allied health professional, paramedic and health scientist students as well. Working closely with NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership and Health Education and Improvement Wales, we've been able to make progress at this unprecedented time. And each of those students who undertake an offer will be paid in accordance with their time—it won't be a voluntary service we're looking for from those people. 

We have more than 1,200 GPs on our locum register in Wales, and we'll be asking all GPs to consider what further time and capacity they have to offer. That is why we're asking all locum GPs to consider a temporary contract with their health board. Their expertise can help in so many ways in community and primary care.

These are extraordinary times that have called for extraordinary measures, but our uniquely Welsh approach to working in partnership is helping us to make a difference. The COVID hub Wales will be released later this week to support our extended and evolving recruitment solutions across the health service.

To ensure that our primary care services remain as resilient as possible, through the increased demand upon them, we've made significant changes to the way that GPs and their multi-professional teams, pharmacy teams, dentists and optometrists provide care to patients across Wales. The changes that I have agreed are designed to respond to people with the most urgent needs, whether related to COVID-19 or not, and to of course minimise the spread of COVID-19. 

We are asking providers to work collectively in their communities to deal with this situation and I am pleased that our stakeholders are supporting this approach. I encourage everyone to follow the advice that has been issued on how to access services during this time. I am grateful to our primary care and social care providers for their continued efforts during this situation.

There are approximately 81,000 people in Wales identified as being at very high risk of severe illness from COVID-19. This week, each person will have been sent a letter from Wales's chief medical officer. It may not have arrived yet; we're waiting until the end of the week for all of those letters to have arrived. The letter includes clear advice to stay at home for at least 12 weeks. The Welsh Government is providing a further £15 million to ensure that people in Wales who are not able to leave their homes will get direct deliveries of food and other essential items to their door, and that was a point covered in the First Minister's statement and follow-up questions. 

My cabinet colleague, Lesley Griffiths, has led on our conversations with supermarkets and wholesale suppliers to agree both supply and delivery for this group of shielded people in a very short period of time. Julie James, as you would expect, is in daily contact with our local authorities. And I really am tremendously grateful to the local government family for the way that they have responded to both lead and co-ordinate community efforts to support people in their own homes. 

So, considerable progress has already been made across our health and care system. It would be easy to forget that all of this has been achieved within just a matter of weeks, and in some cases just days. The work of our public servants and our volunteers is, I believe, truly inspiring. It is vitally important that we use the weeks ahead to put further preparations in place. But these will only be as effective as they could and should be if each of us adheres to the social distancing measures that we have introduced. Stay home, protect our NHS, and save lives.