Thanks very much. There is a difficult—an extremely difficult—situation that's confronting not just Aneurin Bevan health board but also health boards across the whole of Wales at the moment. We've always been open about the challenges that NHS Wales and emergency departments are under, and they're under pressure like they haven't seen during the whole of the pandemic. COVID rates have never been higher in our communities. We have 1,468 people in hospital with COVID. That's the highest number in a year. During the last six weeks, we've been at the highest level of bed occupancy in the NHS since the beginning of the pandemic. We have 900 more patients in hospital today than we did a year ago. Was it right to open the hospital early? Damn right it was, because imagine if we hadn't. We needed those beds. This is not a situation that is unique to Wales, but it's absolutely clear that this is a pressure that's facing people across the United Kingdom as well.

One of the issues that we are having to confront is the fact that there are very high numbers of patients who are ready to be discharged from hospital but they're unable to do so because of the fragility of our care services. I know that the Deputy Minister for Social Services is working incredibly hard on making sure that we get a better flow through our systems. The fact is that in Aneurin Bevan we have around 270 patients who are ready to leave, but it's been impossible for many of them to leave because 70 of our care homes in Aneurin Bevan were closed because of COVID. Can you prepare for those kinds of things? We have been trying to prepare, but we are in an extremely difficult situation at the moment and I think it is absolutely right for us to understand the kind of pressure that our staff is under. And on top of that, let's think about the staff, because actually, a lot of them are going down with COVID as well, which obviously increases the pressure even more on those who are left in the hospitals.