3. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Coronavirus (COVID-19) update

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:18 pm on 17 March 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 4:18, 17 March 2020

Thank you, Llywydd. Thank you to Angela Burns, Llywydd, this afternoon, and I'll do my best to answer questions where I have the information to hand. I know Members will understand that there will be some of the more detailed questions where, not expecting to have been answering questions on this statement, I'll need to provide Members with a more informed reply. 

As Angela Burns has said, while we have been sitting here this afternoon a second death of a patient in Wales has been announced and, of course, our thoughts are with all of those connected with that person. Can I also echo what Angela said in thanking not simply the front-line staff whose responsibilities we have emphasised here this afternoon, but all those who sit behind them and who mean that they can do the jobs that we need them to do?

As far as the testing regime is concerned, I can give the Member a complete assurance that the emerging evidence from around the world continues to be reviewed all the time at the scientific advisory committee. Indeed, I know that the Welsh representative was going to that committee today with some very specific questions to raise in relation to testing, and advice on testing. So, the advice that we get from our chief medical officers and our chief scientific officers is tested every day—tested internally by themselves, tested against the emerging international evidence—and, as I said in answering questions earlier, if the advice changes, then we will follow that emerging advice because that advice will be following the evidence as best it can.

In relation to extending the availability of testing to a wider range of people than front-line clinical staff, that will be something we will think about, of course. It will need to be matched against two things: the capacity we have for testing, which we want to grow, and the extent to which diverting people to do that work takes priority over other things that they could do, but it remains an open issue that we review all the time.

Thank you for the point made about repeat prescriptions, which I'll make sure we'll take up through the normal machinery. As far as mental health is concerned, Members here will know that we have a series of helplines that we have mobilised at different times for different purposes. We've turned them on particularly at times of stress in rural communities in Wales, and we intend to use the call centre and the very expert staff that we have based in it in Wrexham to make sure that when people need an immediate access because they have a mental health issue, that they need help in signposting people to get the help they need, that that helpline will be geared up to respond in the current coronavirus context.

As to appearing on the news, I think I said earlier this afternoon that the Welsh Government will be providing a daily briefing for the press in Wales. We're probably going to do it at 9:30 every morning to make sure that people have assurance and information on a daily basis. It will, as ever, be for news outlets to then decide how to use that information, but we are, in the way that Angela Burns suggested, very keen to make sure that there is the most regular possible flow of information to the Welsh public.

I want to recognise very much what she said about the importance of community pharmacies. We've always been very lucky in Wales with our network of over 700 community pharmacies. They, too, will be feeling the strain and they will be a very important part of our ability to provide a resilient service to people across Wales. I know that efforts are being made to make sure they have the equipment that they need and I'll take up the point that the Member made about the need for health boards to regard them as part of their front-line response in the coronavirus context.

Finally, to the Brexit warehouse, that does mean that we have a stock of medical supplies that we can still draw on, and that's part of the answer to the point that Angela Burns made about availability of medicines. Because we were preparing against the eventuality of a 'no deal' exit, there are some stockpiles still to draw on. The last information I saw was not alarming in relation to the availability of medicines in the immediate future. There may be a point later in the year when the fact that Chinese manufacturers, for example, will not have been working in the way they normally have, where there will be issues that we need to face, but they're not here and now issues as far as coronavirus is concerned.