Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much. Could I thank you and Hefin David for establishing the long COVID cross-party group? I was very pleased to be able to be there for at least a few minutes today, as you said. I am aware that we do need to listen, and I have been trying to make an effort in recent weeks to speak directly to people who have suffered from this. Long COVID is complex. It's not just one thing,...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Yes, the figures from the ONS were truly very large, and that's why I think it is important that we take this very seriously. We're still learning, as I say, about this particular very debilitating illness. One of the key things that people have said to me is that they need to be believed. So, there are hundreds of thousands of people across Wales who have contracted COVID. Now, a lot of them...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: In Wales, we aim to work together on the design of our services with those who use and deliver them. Our health professionals working with people who are experiencing these longer term impacts from COVID-19 are those best placed to understand people’s needs and what intervention will best meet those needs. Our health professionals are liaising closely with colleagues around the world to...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much, Llywydd. As we begin to focus on different aspects of recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, we must not forget those to whom the virus has caused lasting harm. For some individuals, even though they may have had a very mild or asymptomatic experience of the virus itself, we're aware that they may have been left with one or more symptoms, including breathlessness, brain...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much, and I know, Buffy, you will be a champion for your area, and you will know that it's very important for people in your area to take up that opportunity. The last thing we want to see are those disparities, in particular in perhaps the more challenging places economically. We don't want to see those being emphasised because of a low take-up of the vaccine. So, you're...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Well, thank you very much. Congratulations to Buffy, and welcome to the Senedd.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: The take-up so far has been incredibly high, with over 85 per cent of the adult population having taken up their offer of a first dose. But it's vitally important that vaccine take-up levels are maximised, and we're closely monitoring to make sure that there are no barriers to take-up.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch yn fawr, Ken. You'll be aware that Labour proposed in our manifesto that we will be charging onwards with our commitment to development twenty-first century surgeries, which hopefully will go beyond a GP offer, it will reach—making sure that we reach out to care and mental health facilities and lots of other facilities, hopefully working with local authorities as well. That's the...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Any potential investment to improve health facilities in Clwyd South would need to be considered by the health board and align with its service and estate strategies. The main scheme close to Clwyd South is the Wrexham Maelor Hospital redevelopment, and this is being progressed with the Welsh Government.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much, Darren. You'll be aware that we haven't mandated the vaccine to anybody within this nation, and despite that, we've had an incredible uptake amongst the population as a whole. If we can, we certainly want to keep with that route with persuasion. I think that has been extremely successful, and we'd like to continue in that vein, and certainly, when it comes to children, I...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much, Joyce. As you say, we do have to wait for that JCVI advice before moving forward and there are lots of ethical and moral issues that we need to work through. It may be that we want to consider children who are clinically extremely vulnerable or children who live with extremely vulnerable people first; we need to think about how and if we want to do this. Because what we do...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: On 4 June, following a rigorous review, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency approved as safe and effective the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in children aged 12 to 15. This is just a first step in the process, and like other UK nations, we now await the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch yn fawr. I'd like to pay tribute as well to Suzy Davies for the great work that she did to put this onto the agenda. I was really pleased that one of the last things that the education Minister did was to make that commitment that, in the curriculum, women's health issues are going to be a part of what everybody learns about in school, because you're absolutely right: this is not just...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much, Vikki, and I know I'm at that age now where I have to deal with some of these issues and, certainly, what I do know is that every individual has different symptoms and has to deal with this in their own way. What we've done in Wales is to make sure that every individual—. There's a need to tailor the advice to that particular individual. We have four recognised clinics in...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch yn fawr, Vikki. The Welsh Government takes women’s health, including menopausal concerns, very seriously and expects all health boards to provide a full range of services to women experiencing the menopause in accordance with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much, and I also want to thank carers for the extraordinary work that they do across the country, in safeguarding our elderly people, and also young people who have serious problems. I do understand that what we need to do is do everything that we can to make the lives of these carers easier. I do understand the point that having to contact a range of different institutions or...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much. We've already given funding to hospitals that need more help in terms of ventilation. So, for example, in Llandough hospital, we have invested £830,000 of additional funding to help them with their systems, and, of course, it's important that we do understand the importance of ventilation. Now, as to this idea of UVC, I'm not aware that we've looked into it in any detail...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much. Of course, what we've done is given much more freedom to the health boards to have the flexibility that they need to make some of those decisions if they need to make them. We've already given consent to them if they see that they do need to increase their vaccinations and where they vaccinate, and so they have the flexibility to respond in that way. At present, there's...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Well, I'm sure the Member will be aware that the Welsh Government has already produced a workforce strategy on health, working closely with Health Education and Improvement Wales to identify where the gaps are in relation to where we really need to focus our efforts, and there's been a huge amount of work done with that organisation over recent months. On the 12,000 people that we will be...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thanks very much. Well, the process is this: the health boards put forward their annual plans, we're not expecting to receive those annual plans until the end of this week, and as soon as that's been done we'll obviously be analysing those. We'll be looking at where we think the priorities should be and then we will be making a submission to the finance Minister to see if it may be possible,...
