Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m pleased to open this second committee report debate this afternoon, this debate on the Health and Social Care Committee’s report on ‘Hospital discharge and its impact on patient flow through hospitals’. I’m happy to move the motion tabled in my name.

Our report made 25 recommendations and I was very pleased that the Welsh Government accepted 20 in full. Of the five that were accepted in principle, it is disappointing that a number of those recommendations were aimed at improving dementia care. Our recommendation 19 called on the Government to mandate further dementia training for NHS staff who may come into contact with people living with dementia. We made this recommendation because witnesses told us that there was a lack of understanding of the needs of people with dementia in hospitals and how best to support them in their situation in a less frightening way for themselves.

So, our recommendation 20 asked the Welsh Government to work with health boards to set up pilot schemes to trial set discharge slots for people with dementia. This would ensure that vulnerable people are not being discharged from hospital late at night when there is limited access to transport, and when they may be going home, perhaps, to a cold house, or at a time, of course, that causes distress by disrupting family routines.

It is clear from the evidence that we received that issues raised around delayed transfers of care were, of course, no doubt exacerbated by the pandemic—that's, of course, accepted—but also recognising that there are long-standing problems that existed well before COVID-19. It is, however, totally unacceptable that there are more than 1,000 people in hospital beds when they could have been discharged.