Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the comments and questions. In terms of your opening about not just locums, but more generally about staff who may be in at-risk categories, it was one of the concerns of the British Medical Association about asking people to return to practice: they may be people in the most at-risk categories, either in age or underlying health condition categories. But they may be able to...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you very much for the constant questions. Again, I want to reiterate Joyce's point about our staff and, of course, Joyce Watson has Members in her own family who are providing a health and care service, and will understand the commitment they need to provide and the fact that our staff know that they put in themselves in harm's way. They know that in treating people who are ill with a...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the comments and the good wishes. In terms of ventilators, the 600 number includes provision we have and 200-odd that are on their way. In terms of whether the amount that we think we'll be able to procure will be enough, well that rather depends on the course of the outbreak. And I think it's really important in the honesty that we want to provide with each other that we don't...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the questions. I'll try to deal as quickly as I can with the questions as asked. On bed numbers, the 350 beds being released in the Grange University Hospital, together with around 150 that we expect to have agreement on from the private sector, makes up 500 extra beds. They are really for step-down facilities; the private sector don't have intensive care capacity. But the point...
Vaughan Gething: The weeks ahead will be challenging and the demands on our health and care system will continue to grow. That is why I took early action to make sure that our health and social care services are as prepared as they can be for what lies ahead. Our response to this crisis has been to build on our long-term plan for health and social care, to strengthen the structures in place, and to bring...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. We have already heard the First Minister outline the range of extraordinary measures that four Governments across the UK have taken over recent days—measures that have been necessary to respond to the seriousness of this situation, because this is a public health emergency. My overriding priority remains to reduce both the direct and indirect harm from...
Vaughan Gething: Well, this is a question about the delivery of the healthier west Wales plan. You'll recall the significant engagement that took place with both staff and the public, and then actual front-line members of staff presenting options to the health board for the future. And, within that, the community health council chose not to refer the possible options in. So, there is now an agreed strategy...
Vaughan Gething: Our priority is to ensure the people of Wales, including those in west Wales, receive health services that deliver the best possible outcomes for patients. Achieving the vision that we set out in 'A Healthier Wales' will help to deliver that priority.
Vaughan Gething: You're right to say—and as I've indicated both in previous statements and in questions that I answered earlier today—that we'll need to consider how to change the service. That both means about people who currently go through an accident and emergency department and into a hospital, how that may change and how some of those routes work, but also to make sure there's more capacity within...
Vaughan Gething: In support of the UK action plan, which builds on existing pandemic flu preparedness work, a planning and response group involving both senior officials and key external stakeholders has been convened. This will provide strategic co-ordination and support within Government and across the health service. This, of course, includes ensuring NHS accident and emergency preparedness right across Wales.
Vaughan Gething: I think what has to change is delivery, and it's the delivery against an understanding of what their challenges are and their opportunities for improvement, and, actually, some of the work that we have commissioned around the health board, about the real understanding of where they could and should improve their finance function, what that means for the service, but also about having a...
Vaughan Gething: I think there are two points there. One is the licence but the expectation that a chief executive will make changes that are difficult—difficult internally within the organisation, but also, speaking honestly, within the broader politics around the health service. Any time difficult choices are made, most of us objectively end up seeing that there's a reason for a difficult choice to be...
Vaughan Gething: I think there are two points there: one is the point about how the health board is constituted and then the make-up of the board and clinicians making up the majority. In terms of how the health board is constituted, if there's a broader point about its organisation and the scale of it, I actually think that for north Wales to improve, to try to undertake a structural reorganisation in order...
Vaughan Gething: Yes. The health board is progressing the work on plans to recruit the right person to this crucially important role. Although decisions about employment matters are for the health board and its chair to make as the employing organisation, I am wholly committed to providing the support needed to the health board to deliver the improvements that are still required.
Vaughan Gething: Well, I think there's a broader point here about financial improvement across the health service in the last three or four years. I took a particular choice, on taking on the Cabinet role, that I would make sure that whilst we make sure the bills are paid—so that patient care is not compromised, that staff don't have to worry about whether they're going to get paid in the last two months of...
Vaughan Gething: Well, the issues are different in different health boards, and of course I'm disappointed, not just at the failure to meet the target, but about the extent of that failure between different health boards themselves. In Hywel Dda, you'll know that we've undertaken a series of interventions and reports around their challenge and the opportunities for them to improve. It should, though, be said...
Vaughan Gething: There are real, practical questions there, and I'm glad the Member managed to raise some of those with my office earlier today. And I would encourage any other Members, from any party, who have similar experience with constituents, where they're not sure about the advice they're being given, or they've been directed to the wrong part of the system, to raise those with my office. Because I...
Vaughan Gething: We're considering all options. And that's both part of our pandemic influenza planning that is being stepped up; it's also part of what local resilience fora are looking at, to consider what takes place in each of the four areas. And that involves not just devolved public services, it of course involves the regular relations we have together with non-devolved services. So, for example, the...
Vaughan Gething: I recognise the broader point that's being made. The relative levels of critical care capacity across the UK are lower than other European countries; that's true. I don't think now is the time to try to get into any of the funding or other challenges that we might have in a normal period of politics; it's really what we can do now to improve the capacity that we have, for what we expect to be...
Vaughan Gething: I completely agree with the ending that the Member has left there, because it's really important that all of us behave responsibly and provide information from trusted sources to our constituents. So that is information that the Governments of the UK are providing, including on the Welsh Government website, where we have got clear guidance for schools, and our guidance is that schools should...
