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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:46 pm on 10 March 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:46, 10 March 2020

Thank you for the series of comments and questions. Your first point about the new team that I've referred to within the Government: the fact that I've instructed the chief exec of NHS Wales to set this up, there should be more than enough stripes, to use your terminology, within the NHS to make sure that people respond with an appropriate level of seniority. It's about co-ordinating the work within the Government as well as the interface together with the health service. And on your point about isolation measures, going back to some of the points the First Minister made in questions as well, this is actually about how we ought to flex up our capacity to meet people, but also we're going to need to treat people in different ways. People who would normally come in to a hospital setting for their care—we may need to treat teach more and more of those people in their own home in a different way. So, actually, I don't think we should get fixated on the number of beds we currently have but actually about our capacity across our whole system to be able to treat more people, and what that means, and the different treatment choices we'll need to make, and what we'll actually then need to do, for example, together with both regulators and royal colleges as well.

When it comes to the personal protective equipment for general practice and pharmacy, and what that might mean for other people who have direct contact with, in particular, at-risk groups of people—that goes into part of the conversation we're having, not just with the staff in domiciliary and residential care, but also one of your later points about the work with supermarkets. I've already instructed officials to have those conversations about providing goods to people who may be in their own homes for a longer period of time, but it's also about the work the local government in particular will need to do, both in planning for a change in the nature of the way in which services will be delivered, about the way they deliver services in people's homes already, either because they're directly providing that care, or they're commissioning care, and the way in which they'll need to plan for a different way to deliver services—again, potentially with fewer staff at some point, but also potentially with an increase in demand coming through their doors too.

On your point about IT access, the steps that we've taken to provide a consistent piece of software across the system is a real step forward, but that doesn't mean that it has universal coverage, because you're right to point out that there are some people who either don't have IT equipment or don't have access effectively to it for a number of reasons. So, there are also things—[Inaudible.]—other people as well. And again, that's a challenge that not just the health service faces, but a range of other public services too.

And on your point about access to the symptom checker, Public Health Wales have already provided a range of advice posters that talk about symptoms in there, so it's not just an online forum. I've seen in my recent trip to north Wales what that means, and at Cardiff Airport—where they're visible; I think they're very clear—but also a range of businesses have used exactly the same information posters. And that goes back to the points being made before about clear and consistent advice in using advice from a trusted source of information so I'm really encouraged by the way in which that very simple and clear advice is being used in a wide range of areas.

And I'm happy to reiterate the point about 111. It is an all-Wales service—an all-Wales service for coronavirus. So, if people are concerned, they can ring that number from any part of Wales to be provided with advice and guidance.

On the report about indemnity for people who are locums, I'm happy to explore that area further to see about whether we do need to change any of our current arrangements to make sure we have the right numbers of staff in the right place to provide care and treatment and also give people the assurance they may be looking for.

And on your final point about international learning, not just from South Korea, but from more broadly across the world—that was part of your discussion at COBRA this week. It's part of the discussions I've had on a regular basis with the chief medical officer, because what appears to be slightly different advice is being given in different parts of the world, but it's also learning from people in different stages of an outbreak as well. Actually, the work of the World Health Organization will be really important in this. But we certainly want to be linked in to the best possible advice, not just across the UK, but internationally too, about lessons we can learn—and we're slightly behind where other parts of the world are with this outbreak—to try and make sure we make better choices here, or we better understand the choices we are inevitably going to be faced with. So, yes, it's important in the here an now. It will also be important afterwards. So, once we're after the peak of the coronavirus outbreak in the UK and across the globe, it's how we learn from what's happened and understand what we'll better need to do in the future.