Once again, our Chair has given a very thorough and strong introduction to the report in his contribution this afternoon, and I wish to join him in paying tribute to all the NHS staff and social care workers across Wales for what they did during the pandemic at its peak, since then and are continuing to do now, and I'm sure that they will be doing through all of the winter. We clapped them every week at that time, but they deserve so much more than that. Their commitment is undying and unquestionable.

I think we need to remind ourselves, also, why we put the report in, because it was about the impact of the virus and what lessons we would learn from that. There are still so many families that have been devastated by that virus and the loss of loved ones, others who have suffered severe health conditions as a consequence of contracting the virus and spending a long time in hospital, and we must never forget those people in everything we do.

But we have come a long way since the start of the pandemic, and, hopefully, we have learnt a lot. There is much to learn, because if we look at the report and some of the issues that are raised, and I'm repeating some of the comments that Dai Lloyd introduced, but if you look at them, they are still relevant today, they haven't gone away. The PPE question: I'm very pleased that we do now have sufficient PPE, but when this came out, we didn't. No matter how much we thought we had, we didn't. I'm very pleased, also, that local businesses are now using opportunities to create and develop PPE—I've got one in my own constituency, Rototherm, which has transformed itself. Fantastic work is being done to ensure that Wales has a supply of locally based businesses that are producing the PPE.

But also, let's not forget what wearing the PPE does for staff, because if we read our survey of the staff, and some of the comments they made, they found it very difficult to work in those circumstances, and it took its toll on them. Sometimes we need to reflect upon that, so that we ensure that we protect our staff as well, and that we get this PPE right. We don't want to put people in a position where they are facing life-threatening positions when they are going to care for people because we haven't got the PPE for them. We must get that right. I know the Minister will say that we're doing that; we've got larger numbers now, and I very much appreciate that. But I also want to ask him, perhaps—because halfway during the pandemic, the guidelines for PPE were changed, and I want to ask whether there are more changes to come in those guidelines because of the lessons learnt during that pandemic, and people's ability—. Because paramedics are saying that sometimes they go into a situation wearing simply an apron and gloves, which is not sufficient on occasions. We need to make sure our staff are protected.

Can I also raise the issue of care homes? We know full well that, during the initial stages, they were vulnerable, and the residents, who are vulnerable themselves, became, unfortunately, victims of the virus. We saw many, many residents hospitalised, and some of those unfortunately did not survive. Dai has highlighted that there were over 600 of them. We are in a position now where we have put better protection in place, but we did ask for testing to be done on a regular basis. I know that's being done, and I'm very pleased about that, and we must make sure it continues, but I'm still concerned on the home testing agenda and the quality of training given to people to do that. There are too many false negatives and false positives coming through the testing system, and we have to minimise those. One of the ways of minimising that is by following recommendation 10, bullet point 2, which says, 'Ensure it's done by a suitably qualified individual'. There are many nurses already employed in care homes, and there could be others being used in those that don't have them, so I don't think it's something that the Government should have rejected. I think that the Government should have accepted that and made sure that there were appropriately qualified people taking those tests to minimise the possibilities of false negatives and false positives, because that does give misleading information, and it does give misleading confidence on occasions, so we need to address that.

The other issue, obviously, is testing—people have talked about testing—in general, and we raised this question about testing and getting ready. In fact, we actually said, I think in recommendation 8, that we need to prepare for a second wave, and that we should work with partners to take steps for sufficient capacity. Yet we're still talking about capacity. We're still talking about whether we're using lighthouse labs or not. There's a question there still being raised. I appreciate the Minister's already had this many times, but I hope he takes on board the fact that testing is not going to be something that will go away—it is something that is going to drive the agenda forward, and we must ensure that we address the capacity issue, both of the ability to take the test, but the ability to analyse the tests as well. Because that's where people are getting confused; they think, 'Oh, I can have a test', but don't forget it's got to be analysed and the results have got to be provided. We said at that point in time that we want more within 24 hours, and we're still not seeing some of those figures increasing. We need to address that point.

I'll close by saying I want to give huge thanks to the committee staff. Many people don't always appreciate it, but committee staff worked unstintingly throughout the period, and over the summer period, to ensure that we had the evidence we needed to provide this report. We must give thanks to them and to the witnesses that gave us the evidence. Those witnesses represent the people on the front line, and we can't forget that, either. So, thank you very much. And please, Minister, I appreciate we have come a long way, and I appreciate we are not where we were back in March, but let's make sure the lessons are learnt and that the advice is followed. Thank you.