By Mark Isherwood, MS for North Wales

As chair of the Cross Party Group on Hospices and Palliative Care, I had a useful online meeting with the new chief executive of Hospice of the Good Shepherd in Backford, Chester, to discuss cross-border end of life care, and how both their Inpatient Unit and Living Well Services are supporting North Wales patients and families.

Covid-19 has transformed the way hospices work and this innovation will continue after the pandemic. I was told that 'bed blocking' is a problem for their patients from North Wales, where they have finite space, but care packages are not in place when people really want to go home. An example was given where the hospice was unable to discharge a patient who wished to go home to Flintshire due to lack of funding for their care package, but continued to provide them with excellent inpatient care.

I learned about their Wellbeing Centre, which includes bereavement services for adults and children in Cheshire and Flintshire, and about the shared system they are moving on to with Flintshire GPs and Deeside Community Hospital. We also discussed the need for increased hospice provision.

I made a Covid-19 compliant visit to the award-winning Holywell Pet Cemetery to discuss their need to acquire adjacent land in order to expand, host the National Working Dog Memorial, create more local jobs and opportunities for local suppliers, and attract significantly more visitors to the site, Flintshire, and North Wales.

During an online Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board briefing for our region's Welsh Conservative MPs and MSs on the rollout of coronavirus vaccines in North Wales, we raised a number of issues on behalf of constituents and health professionals who have been in contact with us.

I visited the site of the landslide by Newbridge caused by Storm Christoph, with the B5605 near Cefn Mawr closed due to uncertainty over stability of the land and sections of the retaining wall along the river bank lying in the river, to discuss both the immediate affect this has had on local people and the longer term implications.

Other online engagements included meetings with the chair of the Active Travel Board and local representatives to discuss active travel in North Wales, and with Aberystwyth University Conservative Association to answer their questions, online 'perception audits' for both the British Heart Foundation Cymru and the Electoral Commission Wales, and being interviewed as part of a study for HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

Stay safe. If you need my help, email Mark.Isherwood@senedd.wales or call 0300 200 7219.