2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:51 pm on 20 November 2018.

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Photo of Nick Ramsay Nick Ramsay Conservative 2:51, 20 November 2018

Leader of the house, I asked you last week, I think it was—it was certainly recently—about the availability of flu vaccine across Wales and whether we could have an update from the Cabinet Secretary for health on that availability. Since then, I've been inundated by more e-mails by people who've been unable to access the vaccine, one only yesterday from a patient of the Castle Gate practice in Monmouth, whose husband is 75 and was told that, because they are now prioritising for the over-75s, the vaccine wouldn't yet be available for him and to come back later when some arrives. I understand from Age Cymru that they've identified an issue that, early on in this process, some practices and community pharmacies underestimated the amount of vaccine they might need and so not enough was therefore in the system to be provided, and they're working on that. So, could you ask the Cabinet Secretary for health to look at all of this issue? Because, although I understand that there are going to be vaccines arriving, hopefully before the end of November, that hasn't been necessarily best communicated to patients, and many of them have been very concerned. So, hopefully this can be dealt with better in future.

Secondly, and finally, can I concur with the words of the leader of the opposition earlier and also the Member for South Wales Central, who sits behind me normally, with regard to the issue with Transport for Wales and some of those—whatever you might want to call them—teething problems, getting things back on track? There clearly has been an issue and it's important that, beyond the apology that they have given—and I respect the fact that they have been very quick off the mark to apologies to travellers—something there does need to be looked at.

My very own pregnant wife was affected by the problem recently, which you'll know from Facebook—I know many of you will be aware of that—where, I think, three successive trains didn't have sufficient carriages, so she wasn't able to get on. I was the one who got the flack for that, or got the earache later in the day, so it's in my interest for it to be looked at. So, if you could have discussions with the Cabinet Secretary about what could be done to try and alleviate some of these teething problems of the franchise, that would be very beneficial.