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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:40 pm on 1 April 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:40, 1 April 2020

Okay. Thank you for the questions. On cancer care, I did see what Tenovus had to say yesterday, and our expectation is that we're able as far as possible to maintain urgent care across the health service. But our challenge is—and this is why, in all of the choices that our clinicians are making and are being supported to make—there really aren't a range of easy choices, and this is a good example of them. So, on some areas where it can make a difference between whether someone survives or not, we'd expect that treatment to go ahead if at all possible, but if we know, as we do, that more and more people will come into our hospital system, and we're talking about large numbers of people living or not living because of the choices we make across the whole system, we're having to balance each of those choices. But, for example, we're certainly not saying that people who have an urgent need for care, whether it's an emergency, or whether it's indeed cancer care or other long-term or life-threatening conditions—we're not saying that all of that treatment has to stop; far from it.

But we are seeing a public response to the way they use the health service. You'll recall from the conversation this morning that there's been a significant reduction in people presenting to our emergency departments, because people would otherwise be having a much higher attendance rate—I think three or four times what we're currently seeing. So, that public response is helpful to allow our capacity to be protected, and, as I mentioned in my opening statement, of all the people who are currently in intensive care beds, 69 per cent of them are COVID or suspected COVID. That means that over 30 per cent of those people aren't suspected of having COVID or don't have it. So, we already have a number of people in intensive care, so it does show that our system is continuing to treat other people. I'll continue to listen to what our clinicians are saying about their capacity to do their job, and we may then have to make some system-wide choices. If we do, I'll be happy to be upfront with the public and Members on any of those choices. 

On pharmacies, I recognise that, in the design of some of these, it's difficult, if not just not possible, for staff to maintain a 2m distance. Now, the advice we've given is as far as possible to maintain social distancing, but, given the critical role that pharmacies do play, we want community pharmacies to stay open to supply people and support people in managing the range of their healthcare conditions. It's important that the public behave in that way. We know that within the last few weeks we saw some unacceptable instances of behaviour directed towards our pharmacy staff, and that appears to have calmed down now. I've also made choices about the way that pharmacies operate to allow them to make sure they're in a position to continue providing a service to the wider public. My officials and I are of course happy to keep on listening to community pharmacy if there are more things we need to do to enable them to do their job at this hugely important time, but I've yet to hear a further bid from either the Royal Pharmaceutical Society or indeed Community Pharmacy Wales on further steps that we need to take to allow community pharmacists to undertake their role in supporting the public. 

And, in terms of medicine supply, it's a matter I discussed yesterday with Cabinet health Minister colleagues from across the UK, and we don't see at this point in time a medicine supply issue, but it's a matter of fact that the national health service across all four nations from time to time has to deal with supply issues. That's a regular challenge, and most people don't notice that it's happened. At this point in time, I'm not aware that there is a specific medicines resupply issue, but obviously that's something that we'll not just discuss across the four nations—we have well-run decision-making methods across the four nations, which is, if you like, a positive result from our 'no deal' Brexit preparations; we had to think of ways to deal with potential medicine supply issues. Those arrangements are still in place to ensure equity in supply across each of the four nations.