As I’m writing this, the sun is streaming through the window and all the signs of spring are in the air.

It finally feels like we are on the way out of the pandemic, and there is so much more reason to feel hopeful than there’s been in many months.

The vaccine rollout in Wales has been a success and I was delighted with the announcement this week that all adults are due to receive their first dose by the end of July.

NHS Wales’ experience with delivering the yearly flu vaccine, and successful collaboration between different public bodies, has meant that vaccination rates in Wales are amongst the highest in Europe.

As a Plaid Cymru Member of the Senedd, my attitude throughout the pandemic has been to support the Welsh Government’s efforts to bring the virus under control, while scrutinising them on behalf of constituents who contact me with problems and holding them to account when they get things wrong.

The Tories have of course taken a less constructive approach: criticising everything the Labour Welsh Government does, and all the while singing the praises of the incompetent UK government.

While I do appreciate that the Welsh Government is trying its best in a difficult situation, it has made mistakes, and I would be failing in my role as an opposition member if I were not holding them to account for this.

The worst of these mistakes, in my opinion, was their failure to protect care homes at the beginning of the crisis, when they refused to roll out testing to all asymptomatic residents and allowed over a thousand residents to return to their care home from hospital without a test.

They were too slow to act and many people died as a result of this failure. Lessons have to be learned from those shocking mistakes.

Every now and again, an issue is brought to my attention that represents a clear injustice, or even worse, a policy that could actually endanger lives.

A few weeks ago, a care home from Caerphilly contacted me to say they’d been excluded from the Welsh Government’s pledge to vaccinate “all care homes” in the first priority groups.

I investigated the issue, and it turned out that the pledge only applied to care homes for older people.

This meant that people with learning disabilities living in care homes would have to wait weeks – perhaps months – for vaccination, even though they’re up to 30 times more likely to die from Covid19.

I therefore started to campaign for people with learning disabilities to be prioritised, working in conjunction with care homes, charities and the families of those affected by this ill-thought through policy.

The First Minister initially refused to change the policy, but the campaign built momentum, which included Jo Whiley sharing her experiences of the difficulty of looking after her sister, who had caught the virus and was extremely difficult to treat because of her condition.

This week, we had the brilliant news that the policy would finally change. People with learning disabilities would indeed be prioritised, and this was a hugely important victory for them and their families.

It isn’t often in politics (particularly in opposition) that we are able to bring about changes in policy that will have such an immediate impact, and that will actually save lives. When I first graduated, I had the honour of helping bring in new laws in Westminster relating to stalking and coercive control. This week, I felt the same privilege of knowing that I had played a small part in this important campaign. My heartfelt congratulations and best wishes go out to the campaigners and the families whose loved ones will now be receiving the vaccine imminently.