Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:01 pm on 13 May 2020.
Thank you to Angela Burns for the series of questions. I'll try to go through them briefly. Yes, we do have a director, a senior civil servant, who's been empowered with oversight, not just within the Government but the Welsh Government needs to co-ordinate and lead the system to make sure that the test, trace, protect programme actually works and that everyone buys into it and understands the varying roles and responsibilities that the different parts of our system will have.
So, that's going to draw together right across not just Public Health Wales, but our other trusts, our health boards and local government, and that is working well. I've been really encouraged by the way that health boards and local government have been working together on the planning phase for wanting to move ahead and to deliver this programme. But Public Health Wales won't be managing the whole programme. They've provided lots of the ideas and some of the clinical oversight. They've provided the public health evidence about what we need to do in overall terms. This is now the operational end of it, and they're not going to lead the operational end of the system. That's again why we've empowered a senior civil servant to lead that, to hold the ring, and, of course, I've got ultimate oversight for what is taking place.
On the 10,000 or so tests we expect to have, I want those to be able to be in place for the end of May. That's set out in the 'Test Trace Protect' document. That's when I want us to have that sort of capacity in place. As I say, that's a combination of the capacity we already have in place in Wales together with a share of the UK-wide arrangements. So, I've got a reasonable measure of confidence that that will be in place for the end of May, when we want to be able to potentially roll this out on a wider basis.
But our use of those tests, of course, will depend on where we are with the amount of circulation that is taking place from the public. If there's a further release in lockdown measures and people circulate more freely, there's a potential for more contacts, even with the social distancing rules in place. So, at each stage, we may need more tests, and in particular as we get up to the autumn period of time where flu and colds and other illnesses that are often like coronavirus symptoms are in wider circulation as well. That's where we've got to forecast and anticipate a change in demand.
That also comes back to your point about staff as well, because the initial figure in the document of 1,000 staff comes from plans that health boards and local government are already working together on, and I'm really grateful for the way that the local government family across Wales, of varying political allegiances, have worked together with health boards on planning for this. We're making use of the resource that exists in local government—the staff who aren't necessarily at work. Some of them want more things to do and this is an area where we can help those people to work, and including people in their own homes depending on the digital solution.
So, that's the initial point, but, again, we may not need 1,000 people sat waiting for calls on 1 June, but that's the figure that we're working to with the sort of staff numbers we're going to need. And you're right—it is a rough approximation of the numbers in Scotland, but we'll have to judge the evidence on the extent of the programme and what we're going to need and whether we need more people. That's an active conversation that local government, the health service and, indeed, my officials are having.
On your point about NWIS, NWIS aren't looking to build their own system within a few weeks; it's actually about what they're procuring and the work they're helping to lead on, but to make sure that that digital system works and is able to integrate with other systems we have in Wales. So, they've got a really important role in helping us get that right.
It's also important, I think, to recognise what I said earlier about the UK Government testing programme. We're now in a position where the data transfer issues are being resolved, and that gives me a much greater amount of comfort, because previously we could have had tests but not understood what the results were, so the utility of them would have been really, really limited. We're now in a much better position, and so that will be useful.
We've got the same issues on the NHSX app that's being developed as well, because if it works, if we resolve all the privacy issues about who owns the data and how it's resolved—and I think we're in the right sort of place on that—then, that will help us in terms of contact tracing, and if that works from the trial, then I'd want Wales to be able to take advantage of that, but, again, to make sure those data transfer issues are resolved.
On the conversation with local government and the wider voluntary sector on supporting people, that is a conversation we're starting. I've had a very constructive series of rapid conversations—and this is an extremely rapid development of policy, and putting it into action, that we're undergoing—but they recognise, as we do, that if we're going to have a group of people, who are being supported now, and they go out into further circulation, doing more things in the future, if we then ask them to self-isolate again, they'll need to be supported. We'll need to have mobile teams around those people who may need to isolate more than once. But the purpose of this really matters. There's harm caused by being in lockdown, and there's potential harm being caused if we ask people to self-isolate again in the future. But it's to balance that harm, and as you heard in the First Minister's statement and questions afterwards, if the R value goes up to 1.1 over a three-month period, that's thousands of extra deaths that will take place in Wales, and we have to bear in mind that difficult balance we have to take. But I certainly won't take a cavalier attitude that could potentially risk the lives of thousands of Welsh citizens, and I will of course continue to keep Members updated.