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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 11:36 am on 24 March 2020.

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Photo of Suzy Davies Suzy Davies Conservative 11:36, 24 March 2020

Can I thank you, Minister, particularly? It's been an incredibly stressful time for yourself, your colleagues here, and also your colleagues in other Governments. I think, unusually for an opposition Member, perhaps, you definitely deserve our thanks on this one.

Can I join you also in thanking our front-line staff? But not just those within the health service, but those who support those staff. So, their own families, the garages that provide the MOTs for the nurses who need to drive to work, for example, and for all those who are socially distancing, understanding this is about saving lives—not just their own, but those of people around them as well.

Perhaps it's worth just reinforcing the point that retailers that don't come into the categories that were mentioned a little bit earlier on cannot be obliging their workforce to go in to work when the Government has told them that those workers need to stay at home.

Perhaps I can just ask you a few specific questions, though. I'll start with the beds, if I may, because you said on Sharp End last night that, between the facility in Gwent and some private capacity, you've identified a further 500 bed spaces—it may have gone up a little bit today—and that you were confident that they could be staffed using some of the additional nurses, trainee doctors and so forth that you also mentioned. But in Hywel Dda alone—and I'm picking up a small board on purpose here—they've already calculated that they're going to need an additional 1,600 beds to meet demand peak at May or June. So, I wonder if you can tell us what the calculated shortfall in bed space across Wales for that peak is likely to be? I appreciate you can't get this bang on. Where are you looking to create the extra capacity? Are you confident that you will actually get enough response to your call for trainee nurses, trainee doctors, recently retired doctors and so forth, to staff those beds adequately?

On that in particular, are you looking to the allied healthcare workers as well—your physios, your occupational therapists, podiatrists, and so forth—to help fill some of these skills gaps? And in which case, I appreciate you've said that everyone's going to get an induction and they will be fully trained, but in what exactly? What kind of skills will we be missing and where will we be missing them? Perhaps you can give us an indication as well about how many allied healthcare workers have come forward as well as the trainee doctors, nurses and retired nurses and doctors. Are you in a position to give us any indication on numbers coming forward yet?

Testing: again, you said on Sharp End last night that you're looking to roll out testing beyond the NHS to social care, the police and others—and I appreciate that's not imminent but will be happening—saying that you're significantly increasing capacity. At the moment, the worry is that not all our NHS staff are being tested. So, can you give us an indication of who within the NHS staff is being tested and where they're being tested? Is that that on the site that they're working, or are they being asked to go elsewhere? In which case, where are those sites? Who's doing the testing? Because if we're increasing capacity, we'll need the individuals to do the swabbing, but we'll also need additional lab technicians or other appropriate individuals to do the testing. Perhaps you can tell us where that lab work is being done. Is it still just at the Heath, or are other university settings being asked to give time from their labs over to doing that work?

Then, ventilators. I think you mentioned that there are 600 ventilators in the system. Perhaps you can confirm that; I didn't quite catch it. Again, you said last night that you've got about 75 per cent capacity, or assessed capacity, en route. But again, to quote one of the smaller local health boards, Hywel Dda, they calculate that they need about 200 ventilators. They've managed, between their own stock and getting some from private hospitals nearby and universities—they've got about 80. That's a long way short of 75 per cent, let alone 100 per cent. Can you give some indication about when the new ventilators will be arriving into Wales? You mentioned that the UK as a whole is pooling resources, so it would be quite useful to know where Wales fits into the queue. I know that's a perhaps slightly unfortunate way of phrasing it, but certain parts of Wales will probably be getting these ventilators a little bit later than others, so if you can give us an indication of when some of this kit will be arriving. 

Protective clothing, you've mentioned this. Again, there's only so much available just at the moment, and while I completely understand that you're acquiring more, are you able to give us an indication about how you're prioritising where that goes at the moment? Because you mentioned all front-line staff a little bit earlier, I think, but even within a hospital setting there'll be certain areas that perhaps have greater priorities than others—A&E, for example. How would that compare to, I don't know, cancer wards or maternity or something of that nature? Obviously, elective surgery has been cancelled, so I don't need you to cover that, but within a hospital what's the prioritising looking like? 

And then, finally: recovery. It will happen one day, just to reassure everybody. What have you told the local health boards at this stage about getting together teams to prepare for recovery? Because we're not just talking about moving everything on six months. This will be catch up, big time, won't it? Hopefully, within a year. Are you asking them to get together discrete teams to start working on forward planning? Again, I repeat that question for within the health department within the Welsh Government—although I suppose it applies to all departments, actually—about whether you have albeit a small group of people dedicated to the forward planning on this and how we will recover when the worst of this is over? Thank you very much.