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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:13 pm on 3 June 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:13, 3 June 2020

Well, the point on dentistry is understood and, of course, from my own position as a constituency Member, I've got people who will want to access dental services. Actually, we have struggled in the past to get people to take up those services in the way that we would want them to, and it's another point about the way that children and young people actually behave together and our ability to intervene earlier to actually inculcate good habits about dental hygiene. So, I do take seriously the points that Members from a range of parties have made, both here but also outside this setting, about the desire and the benefit from restarting dental services. So, I'm not ignoring or brushing that to one side; I am genuinely taking it seriously.

On your point about retesting in care homes: I expect, before the end of the completion of the initial phase, to have advice about the period of time within which retesting will take place and what that retesting programme will look like, so we don't end up with a position when, in three months' time, there's another head of steam to retest people in the care home sector, but we have a regular and understandable programme. And I then have to balance that with the need that we'll need to maintain and protect capacity within our testing programme to do that, and still to make sure that we have sufficient capacity to make sure that contact tracing isn't compromised as well. Because I certainly wouldn't want our new NHS Wales test, trace, protect service to be compromised in some way. But, equally, we need to make sure we're balancing the risks that are run in all parts of the service. That's why the increase in lab capacity to more than 9,500 we've seen take place is such good news; it allows us to have those choices, to not be constrained by capacity. But I need to see the evidence, to see the advice, and, as soon as that's available, I'll be happy to inform not just the Member but all Members of what that means and what our expectation is for retesting to take place for staff and residents in the care home sector.