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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:18 pm on 22 April 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:18, 22 April 2020

Thank you for that series of questions. We've actually worked alongside developers on the smartphone app and it's giving us a large amount of data in Wales to understand wider community activity and behaviour, but none of those systems are perfect and there are people who miss out—equally, not just on symptoms, on the data we're able to track about traffic movements and people movements as well to show the adherence to wider social distancing. 

So, we've got a range of surveillance efforts, not just on symptoms, on people reporting them, but also of course the numbers of people who contact our healthcare system if their symptoms give them enough cause for concern and they feel unwell.

So, there is a range of different areas to understand the challenges we face across systems and how we then address symptoms, particularly given the settings—that's why there's been so much concern about the care home sector. 

On face masks, I think it's again really important to reiterate that we don't want the public trying to acquire face masks that are medical grade to be used within our health or social care sector. It's about the evidence base that we have to understand whether or not masks would make a difference for the public, and, if so, what sort, and to make sure that they're manufactured in a very different way and to make it clear they're not in competition with those that front-line health and care workers need. Now, on the import of PP equipment, even if you take aside those matters that are reserved and we don't have control over, we certainly want to make sure that we test and understand the nature of the equipment that is being provided. I don't think anyone would want us to try to make that system any less properly rigorous. We want to know that people can have confidence in what they're being provided with. I know the economy Minister, through use of his local links, with the import of face masks that came in through a company in north Wales—we had to test that before having the assurance we could use it within our wider system. That's got to be the right thing to do. But every one of the leads we have is followed up and it's important to make that clear.

One of the frustrations that I have is that, for all of the well-meaning desire to help, some of those, of course, don't end up coming off, for reasons that I'm sure we could all understand. But my bigger frustration is the fact that, within all of the well-meaning and the positive things that do get taken forward, we still have to spend time working through what are fraudulent enquiries that are utterly mischievous, and that is a real sense of frustration. So many people in the world are behaving in an extraordinary manner to help their fellow citizen, but there are, sadly, some people who are looking to take advantage, and that is burning up lots of our precious time, energy and effort.

When it comes to recognition for carers, the economy Minister is going to be making a statement shortly, but we do need to think about the practical capacity of our transport network to take on additional need going into that, and it's a difficult balance. We regularly consider the role of carers, including unpaid carers and what they do, and many of us are, in fact, unpaid carers ourselves, when you think about friends and family who we care for. I'm certainly doing even more for my mother, as I'm sure many other people are with their parents and grandparents too, and that's really important to keep society going and to make sure that people who are living more restricted lives are able to do so well and to do so safely.

On the card issue that the UK Government have produced, that's actually—my understanding is it was a card for social care workers. What we've done in Wales is we've already provided a card—an electronic one, and there's a physical version going out—but that is so that our social care workers can be recognised as critical workers. That will help them with both assistance to practical restrictions in shops, when it is reserved for NHS and other critical workers, and to help them get practical assistance. We're also looking at rather more practical measures about how we recognise the significant efforts of our social care system, and a group of staff who we all recognise are relatively lowly paid, and we are reconsidering, quite rightly, the value they provide to our whole country.