Vaughan Gething: Formally move, Deputy Presiding Officer.
Vaughan Gething: I think it's fair to say there will be some people who won't have heard yet, because the NHS will be contacting more and more of those people progressively through not just this week, but the next week as well. And it's the case that, in other parts of the UK, there'll be people who won't have heard and people who won't have been invited to an appointment yet, including the over-80s and in...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you. On 11 January, I published the national vaccination plan, reflecting months of detailed NHS planning. The strategy set out a number of key milestones that the Member will be familiar with. Hywel Dda health board, which serve the population of Carmarthenshire, confirm that all general practices have signed up, and are increasing their mass vaccination centres from two overall to at...
Vaughan Gething: I think the Member makes a very sensible point. If you get your news from BBC, then you'll have seen this week the series they're running on the very real pressures in our healthcare system. The hospital may be in England, but, actually, the pressures are real in every part of the United Kingdom, and that COVID care does mean we've had to interrupt non-COVID care. I have explained previously...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you. The ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic has seen considerable change to acute care services in Wales. Practitioners continue to respond with agility and innovation to meet the requirements of this exceptional situation that balances an increase in demand with the levels of COVID-19 cases and the resulting and unavoidable pressures.
Vaughan Gething: Well, I think I should go back to some of the points I rehearsed with both Delyth Jewell and others on the prioritisation list. The independent, expert JCVI have given us advice on how to make best use of the vaccines that we have available; chief medical officers have endorsed that advice, because it will help to save as many lives as possible. The current priority list one to nine that the...
Vaughan Gething: The First Minister has clarified his position on several occasions, and I answered not just questions in the media, but about 20 minutes' worth of the emergency question yesterday. I recognise there's a lot of public interest in this.
Vaughan Gething: I don't think I can be any clearer about the actual position—that the vaccine isn't being held back, it's being delivered to our NHS as quickly as the NHS can deliver itself, and our infrastructure has increased significantly to allow even more of those supplies to go out, and we'll carry on doing so. And I should say that we're in the same position as other UK nations in having a store of...
Vaughan Gething: I think it's a fair question, and I thank the Member for the way he's put the question as well, because it's important we don't stoke people's fears, in terms of the roll-out. I think Pfizer-BioNTech themselves have made a public statement that they're reassessing their own manufacturing process and there'll be a brief pause before they then have a more robust manufacturing process for the...
Vaughan Gething: We're working through that with colleagues not just here in education—and the education Minister and I have a very constructive and good working relationship in sharing information and decision making—but also, of course, with staff within local government and within the school sector to identify relevant staff, to make sure they're identified for the vaccination process. We'll need to...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you. And, Presiding Officer, I understand you've given your permission for questions 5 and 8 to be grouped. All health boards are geared up for significant expansion of capacity in January, with the coming onstream of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Our plans are dependent on Wales receiving vaccine supplies in fair proportion and in good time. Supply is outside of our control, but the...
Vaughan Gething: Yes. Domiciliary care workers are social care workers. People going in to deliver care in people's homes are certainly front-line workers, and you wouldn't just hear that from me. I can see not just my deputy—I see former Ministers who have occupied that brief—and they will recognise that these front-line workers, I think, have got greater recognition as heroes within our health and...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you. The Welsh Government accepts and has followed the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, and is committed to ensuring that front-line social care workers are vaccinated as a priority. Front-line social care workers are, of course, in the current list of priority groups. Care home residents, and the staff that care for them, are in the highest group...
Vaughan Gething: In direct conversations I've had with the health board—and I'm sure the Member has engaged in the regular briefings that the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board provides—the provision and the early completion of the Grange hospital is a key part of the practical COVID response. It allows for much easier and greater isolation, because of the single rooms that are provided throughout the...
Vaughan Gething: I understand there's real anxiety from everyone who's a front-line health and care worker, but I really don't think it was Huw Edwards's finest hour to promote on social media that incendiary comment that doesn't actually have a basis, I think, in the public health advice we've received and are following. It might be helpful for me to explain to the Member how we get to this point again. So,...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you. During the pandemic, the available capacity has reduced to enable appropriate social distancing and improved infection-prevention and control measures to be implemented. As I've stated previously on a number of occasions, these measures, and increased personal protective equipment usage and requirements, have significantly reduced throughput in our NHS. Health boards have...
Vaughan Gething: Well, of course we recognise that lockdown comes with harms as well as benefits, and we've been very upfront about that in statements made by myself, by the First Minister and by the evidence papers that we've published from our technical advisory group, and, indeed, the statements published by our chief medical officer. So, this isn't a new factor for us to take into account. It's always a...
Vaughan Gething: Well, of course we'll consider the developing evidence base on the effectiveness and characteristics of vaccines and the threats that we're looking to combat. I think going beyond that is rather unhelpful and speculative, because we need to understand the confirmed evidence, rather than what may or may not be developing. There is always the potential for different things to happen at various...
Vaughan Gething: Well, there's a bit of a hypothetical question there about what we can do if a certain change is or isn't made. What I think is much clearer though, and I think it is a fair question to ask, is if the JCVI—the independent expert group that has given us advice on how to make the best use of vaccines, how to have the greatest public health benefit and how to save the greatest number of...
Vaughan Gething: Yes, I'm aware there's an issue with some staff not taking up the protection that the vaccine offers. In fact, I had a conversation with Vikki Howells about this yesterday on the work that we're looking to do, not just with providers and commissioners, but also with trade union representatives to reinforce to their members, again, the point that I made in your second question: the vaccines...
