The First Minister:

There is an on-going maintenance programme in the NHS, which is important in ensuring that the current estate is in the state that it needs to be in. Obviously, one of the issues that we have had to deal with in the past six months is reduced capacity because health boards and hospitals have had to deal with Covid and also make sure that there is capacity to deal with it should cases rise.

The NHS Louisa Jordan was originally put in to make sure that, if we needed extra capacity for Covid, it would be there. It will be available over the winter if we need it, but it is not needed for that right now, and it is helping to do other things. In the period between the beginning of July and the middle of September, around 2,000 people were seen at the Louisa Jordan, and the intention is to increase out-patient clinics there over the next few weeks. That facility is helping to mitigate reduced capacity in other hospitals because of the need to make sure that there is a Covid contingency in them.

Next week, the health secretary will set out plans for the winter and how the national health service intends to cope with the variety of winter pressures that it faces. At that stage, she will also give an update on the on-going progress to remobilise the NHS and restart services that were paused because of Covid.