Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question from Dawn Bowden, and to be fair, Dawn has raised consistently with me over a period of time concerns about that broader community transmission rate within Merthyr Tydfil. The difficulty we face with Merthyr Tydfil is that the scale and the spread is different to the two sites in north Wales. The numbers are different and we're clear that they're centred or...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the series of questions. On the broader point about advice within the sector, as with every other sector of the economy, those who would have carried on operating would have had to consider how they could remain COVID compliant. There have been conversations with both the Food Standards Agency for their role in food hygiene and the Health and Safety Executive about the way that...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. I have today issued a written statement on the two recent outbreaks centred on meat and food processing sites in north Wales. We're keeping both of these under very close observation and management. All necessary action to protect the public is and will continue to be taken.
Vaughan Gething: As the Member knows, I'm here to answer questions as the health Minister in the Welsh Government. I'm very well aware of my responsibilities for the constituency that I've had the privilege to be directly elected to represent twice to this Parliament. And as the Member knows, there is plenty of scientific evidence and advice around the removal and transfer of mud within an estuary...
Vaughan Gething: I think it's a point well made, actually, by the Member, and I recognise his longstanding and continuing interest in the real public health harms caused by gambling. I don't think now is the time to go into the division of powers that exist, but we do still need to understand what that means and we do understand that there has been a significant increase in online gambling, as the Member sets...
Vaughan Gething: Well, the final details of who is going to receive the payment will be announced when we've finalised the negotiations with employers and trade unions, which I understand are near final, so you will hear that in the coming days, and I think it'll provide the clarity that you're looking for, Angela. In terms of the tax on the £500, it's always been a UK decision. We did make representations...
Vaughan Gething: I can't hear Mick. I can't lip read, either.
Vaughan Gething: It may be worth me putting on record that the announcement about shielding came on the back of advice from the chief medical officer. So, this wasn't a case where I decided that I wanted to change the category and so I made a choice to do that without any evidence or advice. We did think we were going to be in a position to make a unified announcement with other UK countries, and then the...
Vaughan Gething: I think it's a point I've dealt with before, but it's entirely a fair point for the Member to raise in this setting as well, about the mistake, and it was a mistake, that was made in discharging people when they should not have been. The health board in north Wales are recovering that, because the guidance that we provided to every health board I thought was very clear that mental health...
Vaughan Gething: Helen Mary is silenced.
Vaughan Gething: Well, the point on dentistry is understood and, of course, from my own position as a constituency Member, I've got people who will want to access dental services. Actually, we have struggled in the past to get people to take up those services in the way that we would want them to, and it's another point about the way that children and young people actually behave together and our ability to...
Vaughan Gething: Well, I'd be very happy to make sure that the Government and the professional leadership provided by our chief dental officer maintains the regular dialogue that we do have with the British Dental Association here in Wales. I think we should, again, accelerate the reform of the way we deliver dental services to have a greater focus on doing the greatest amount of good with the resource we...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. It's one of the concerns that I've had and expressed for a number of weeks now, that a range of our urgent care services that have remained open haven't seen people going into them, partly because people have been more frightened of going into a healthcare facility than the symptoms or concerns they would have had. Six months previously, people would have been more...
Vaughan Gething: I think there are two things—the first is that the Welsh Government was never in a position to give a guarantee that it would not be taxed. We made clear publicly that we wanted the UK Government to agree not to tax this so it could be treated, as Mike Hedges said earlier, as a gift, not as a taxable payment. They've done that in the past in extraordinary circumstances—for example, it was...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you. On the two questions—on nursing home fees, we have regular dialogue, as a Government, with Care Forum Wales. We've had that dialogue in the regular engagement that I and officials have had about improving testing, and that's now in a much better place for the residential care sector in particular. And the Deputy Minister, Julie Morgan, meets with Care Forum Wales on a regular...
Vaughan Gething: We'll continue to talk with them about what's possible as we continue to review what we're able to do across the whole of our response to the pandemic. As I've said in answer to questions earlier, if the evidence changes, we'll be happy to change the position we're in and, of course, the way that we use the resources available to us. On the position about dentistry in England, it's not quite...
Vaughan Gething: I can't hear him.
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question, Dawn, and it is a matter of fact—to put this in some context—that whilst the peak of the epidemic is different in different parts of Wales, it is a fact that the Aneurin Bevan, Cardiff and Vale and Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board areas have had a higher incidence in terms of per-head infections, and the harm that has been caused and, in turn, the mortality...
Vaughan Gething: Perhaps I can start with that final point, because we've consistently said—and it's been in some of the papers that we've already published on the scientific evidence—I think we've been as open if not more open than any other Government in the UK on making available that evidence that we're receiving as Ministers—that advice—and then actually going out and making our decisions and...
Vaughan Gething: On your point about PPE, all of our PPE that is issued goes through a quality control process, including if the initial expiry dates mean that that PPE can still, no less, be used and used safely, because that is the test that we apply: have we got adequate PPE—adequate in terms of the protection that it provides, making sure that it's in date and appropriate for staff to use? And as you...
