5. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Coronavirus (COVID-2019) update

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:55 pm on 10 March 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:55, 10 March 2020

I want to thank you for the comments and questions. I think your story of real experience in the recent past is important for all of us. On 0845, the old 0845 number, that is a cost that phone providers themselves charge and we're not in control of that. That's really frustrating, but we've taken the step to have an all-Wales 111 service so that it's a consistent number, so that we're not asking people in different parts of Wales to check which number they should use. I think it's really important, those points about clarity and consistency in the message that we have.

I'm really clear that if they need more resources, then we'll find more resources to give them more capacity to deal with people. There is something then about our whole NHS system understanding what to do, both about whether they need to use protective clothing or equipment, but also to make sure that people do themselves understand, in a simple and a clear way, how they should behave with members of the public. I think your point about the fact that they drove to a hospital site when that's exactly what we're asking people not to do, and our challenge about reinforcing for people to please follow the advice to keep them and other people safe—it's about keeping them safe, their family, their loved ones, but also people they may never have met. This is a really serious position.

The choices that we may well be faced with making will be choices that are imperfect, in the sense that we may be making choices about putting off activity within the health service to prioritise the most serious activity; we may be asking people to deliver treatment in a way that isn't what you'd expect to deliver in the here and now today, because of the capacity and because of the demand that we may see coming through our doors. The situation in Italy should tell us something about the choices we may face.

Italy is not a developing world country, they have a good developed world health system, and yet their healthcare system is over-topped at present. They've over-topped all of their intensive care capacity, including having scaled that up by redeploying their staff, and they're having to make some of the choices that the First Minister described as well. They're talking about treating people in hospitals not in the sort of position that they might otherwise have wanted those people to be in, in an intensive care bed, but they may not have those beds because they're full; they're talking about people who may need ventilation, they don't have that, they're thinking about alternatives. As I've said several times, we may be treating people in their own homes when today we would definitely be saying, 'That person should be in a hospital, in a bed with a certain level of escalation.' These are not trivial choices we are actively contemplating having to make.

Even if we flex all of our capacity, if we switch off other areas of activity, if we redeploy all of our staff, it is still possible that if we don't take steps, if we don't take effective measures, we could be over-topped. It is also possible that, doing everything humanly possible, a new condition that we don't have a vaccine for, we don't have effective anti-viral treatment for—it is possible when you look at the reasonable worst-case scenario that a range of our services could be over-topped. That's the challenge we're facing, so the seriousness of all the choices we make are real. As I say, the scale of what is happening in Italy now should reinforce that, not just the rise in the death toll numbers, but also the numbers of people that are seriously unwell at present today in Italy and they're having to care for.

So, I'll be happy to deal with all of those points as we come through and have to make choices, both about choices that we are making, about change in the way the health service works, but also about choices that we are saying we don't need to make. Again, we're asking the public to follow the advice that we're giving from trusted sources, the Government the national health service, and to make sure that we do follow that advice and not some of the alternative advice that exists from alternative commentators that are being giving a platform on social media and the broadcast news. I saw an interview Rory Stewart did—a former Cabinet Minister—and he was suggesting that the Government should ignore the scientific advice and take action early, in advance of what the science tells us. That is entirely the wrong thing to do. I was very disappointed because it's highly irresponsible, so this Government will make choices even if they seem counterintuitive. I re-provide the reassurance that we are definitely definitely listening to the four chief medical officers across the UK and we are definitely looking to the very best scientific advice we have to base our decisions upon.