3. How is the Welsh Government supporting the care sector during the pandemic? OQ57132

I thank the Member for that, Llywydd. The social care sector has made an enormous collective effort to protect those who rely upon it during the pandemic. In support, we have provided over £185 million through hardship funding and free personal protective equipment. Since September, a further £90 million for the sector has been announced, recognising the continuation of the pandemic.

On 28 April 2020, the UK Government announced that COVID testing would be extended to all care home staff and residents in England. That was not the case in Wales, with you, First Minister, saying you saw no value to providing tests to everybody in care homes at the time. That was a pivotal moment for Mr and Mrs Hough, who ran Gwastad Hall nursing home in Cefn-y-Bedd, Flintshire. It was not until 16 May 2020 that your then health Minister brought in blanket testing for staff and care home residents. Five days later, on 21 May, Mr Hough killed himself. Twelve of their residents had died in those first few months of the pandemic. His widow, Mrs Hough, said she believed her husband's distress at seeing the patients struggling led directly to his death, adding that her husband was a victim of COVID and that she wanted the Welsh Government held to account and wants answers. The chief executive of Care Forum Wales said the issues they encountered were not atypical. How, therefore, do you justify to care sector professionals like Mrs Hough your continued rejection of their call for a Wales-specific public inquiry into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic?

I do so by reference to my agreement with the Prime Minister, who is the leader of the party that the Member here represents.

Tomorrow, First Minister, the cross-party group on dementia will publish a report on hospital care, and at this point, I would like to pay a very deserved tribute to Lynne Neagle for her excellent work on this report before she joined Government. First Minister, the pandemic has once again demonstrated the huge importance of close collaboration between the health and social care sectors. There are recommendations in this report, having spoken to health professionals and families suffering dementia, there are recommendations that are very practical in nature, for example, specific time slots for people to be released from hospital that enables families and care homes and carers to contribute to the system, and to understand that system better. Also, designated teams in hospitals to ensure that everything is ready by the time someone is released from hospital; that all the medicine, the paperwork and the transport is all ready. So, First Minister, would you be willing to read this report by the cross-party group on dementia and then consider creating a pilot to implement these practical recommendations?

I thank the Member for that additional question, and I'm looking forward to reading the report. It's great to hear about the practical recommendations included in the pages of the report and as the Member said, the Minister, Lynne Neagle, will be very eager to see the report and to see where there are practical steps that we can take here in Wales. We know that during the pandemic, people who suffer from dementia and the people caring for them have had a very difficult time, and the work that the cross-party group is doing will help us to plan and to provide most services for those suffering from dementia in the future.