Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:21 pm on 13 May 2020.
I thank Jenny Rathbone for that question. Of course, we have plans to expand significantly the number of tests that we will be able to provide in Wales when we move into the new world of test, trace and protect. And that will involve new ways in which we can deliver tests directly to where people live—an expanded home-testing regime—as well as the mobile testing units that we now have available. And of course, Jenny Rathbone is right that, when we move to that more community-based system, we will need a lot more people to be involved in contact tracing. And she's right as well that we can't take those people from important health jobs that they are currently doing.
Now, my colleague Vaughan Gething will answer questions on this later this afternoon, Llywydd, and I know you don't want us to just go over ground we will both cover. But in the test, trace, protect document that we have published earlier today, it says that we're looking for about 1,000 people in the first instance when the system begins. And we think that most of those people will come from local authorities—people who are not able to do the jobs they would normally do, but are being paid by local authorities and can then be put to work in this new way. The volunteers have done a fantastic job across Wales in the coronavirus crisis—we've had 7,000 people deployed on coronavirus-related activities across Wales—but those 1,000 people are going to be needed every week for many weeks to come, and volunteer circumstances are inevitably a bit volatile—they may themselves go back to work, they may have other things they need to do. So, our first thoughts at this stage are that recruiting those 1,000 people primarily through our local authorities, so that people are being paid for the job they do and can devote their working week to doing it, will be the way we will set about recruiting the staff we will need.