Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:43 pm on 22 April 2020.
Yes, thank you. I think there are a couple of points I'd make briefly in response, and that is that it's a good news story that Aneurin Bevan don't need to make use of the capacity that is available at the Grange now. That demonstrates the impact of our social distancing measure, but the important message about not having complacency about what we're doing now so that people don't suddenly throw away the gains that we have made. But it is there available for future use because we do expect that as we release social distancing measures, we may find more need coming into our system, and the point is well made about suppressed need. For those people who are avoiding coming into our system because they're concerned about coming into a hospital environment now, despite the fact that they have urgent care needs themselves, I want to reiterate that message again: if you have an urgent care need, the NHS is still open for business; we want you to come forward with your urgent care need. In some cases, it really can be the difference between saving someone's life or not.
And it's important to make the point about learning from what's being done, and I think absolutely across the system we're looking to learn from the expansion and the way that Aneurin Bevan have coped. I think it's the wrong time now to have a fully fledged public inquiry; that would be a massive unnecessary distraction. We need to learn as we move, learn as we do, and of course there'll be a time when there needs to be a much fuller backward look about what's been done and why. I'm sure that this Parliament will want to play its part in deciding how to do that.