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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:43 pm on 13 May 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:43, 13 May 2020

Well, the health service has been reorganised, effectively, to deal with this major challenge. We were talking earlier about some of the challenges of non-COVID harm that had taken place because we've had to refocus our whole service in the way we scale up different parts of the service, from creating a field hospital to the extra critical care capacity that we've got. So, the broader reform agenda that 'A Healthier Wales' set out has obviously had to be largely paused.

But as we return to having more activity, we're still going to need to consider how we operate effective services in this changed environment and what it means for the future. But I would not expect that there would be a new and radically different proposal that we introduced—it's rather difficult to engage our own staff in those or indeed the public. The caveat that I think we do need though, and we all need to be grown up about this, is that there could be changes to services that have to take place from a patient safety point of view, and what I wouldn't want to do is for us to be saying that that could not take place because of the wider pandemic. But if there's any idea that change will be sneaked through or pushed through under the radar, that isn't going to happen. But more than that, though, we will need to think about how we take forward some of the things that have happened, so, for example, the changes in greater use of technology and the opportunity to reform out-patients. There'll be a range of things that we will want to do and not simply go back, in every aspect, to the way things were before. But on vascular services, for example, I certainly don't anticipate there being a major change, but that would be a matter for the board, with the paper that they consider and the review that they've already instituted and have put in place.