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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:47 pm on 1 April 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:47, 1 April 2020

Thank you for the questions. If I deal with your point about manufacturing, because that is exactly the same point that I dealt with in an earlier question. Whether they're ventilators or whether they're PPE manufacturers, the opportunities are there to be supported in the delivery of that. We've also got the ability to validate the quality of supplies with the facility that we have here in Wales.

I've also seen the Royal Mint, for example, producing visors for front-line staff who now need them. That's advancing the old guidance of what we expected for a flu pandemic, potentially. I'm expecting the new revised guidance to say more about protective eyewear and, actually, that's why we distributed a range of protective eyewear earlier than we would otherwise have expected.

I'm happy for whoever thinks that they have the ability to help produce something to a right specification to contact the Government. They can contact my ministerial address and I'll make sure it gets to the right place to be reviewed, as I explained earlier on the ventilator manufacturing point as well. 

For testing kits offers, actually, they are all being reviewed by Public Health Wales. Now, we've had a significant response with people coming in and making offers, and the point I made earlier in response to Adam Price was we need to understand the value of the offer that's being made, the efficacy of any of the potential testing routes that are being offered, and the value that they then provide. We've got to be able to do that, because otherwise we will potentially see ourselves burning up resources on kit that we don't find to be effective. Now, I don't want to get into individual cases because, as you'll know, I don't read every single e-mail that has my name on it, but I do make sure that those are dealt with and responded to. 

On your point about personal protective equipment, I've responded to questions not just today but in a wide variety of fora—when speaking to trade unions, when speaking to local authority leaders, when speaking to health board chairs and chief executives, when speaking to staff—and they all recognise that there are challenges in some parts of our system in PPE getting to people on the front line. It is not the case that all of our staff are being left without PPE; it is the case that some of our staff are now. If we provide the PPE to 98 per cent of our staff, that doesn't mean to say we don't worry about the 2 per cent that don't have it.

I'm genuinely concerned about front-line staff who need PPE not having adequate supplies of the right PPE for them to use. It's taken a huge amount of my time and energy, and that's why we've sent out so much PPE—as I said in my statement, over five million items. This is not a small or marginal undertaking, and the Government is absolutely aware of the scale of the emergency that we're facing. It's an emergency the like of which none of us have ever seen in our lives in public service and none of us expected to. 

So, we will continue to work in accordance with the guidance that I know is being reviewed, and you know is being reviewed from my earlier statement and in answers to all the questions, and we'll take on board our responsibilities to procure the right PPE in accordance with that revised guidance.