2. What assessment has the Minister made of the effect of COVID-19 on non-COVID-19 related health services in north Wales? OQ55406

I am of course aware that COVID-19 has had a real impact on non-COVID-19 care in north Wales and across the whole country, and patients are waiting for appointments and treatment. However, as well as hospitals postponing appointments, as we discussed earlier I am aware that during the pandemic some patients have elected to defer their appointments. Progressively introducing more NHS activity will provide greater non-COVID care across Wales. 

Thank you, Minister. My grave concerns about the unintended consequences of lockdown are a matter of public record. The fact that the same subject has come up more than once today is testimony to the stories we're all, no doubt, hearing about delayed or cancelled chemotherapy appointments, surgeries delayed or cancelled and screening not taking place. You have been keen to tell the public that the NHS is open for business, when the reality appears to be the opposite, and this is our constituents' lived experience. Minister, are you sleepwalking into a bigger and more deadly health crisis later on this year? Thank you.

Well, the First Minister and I have acknowledged, not just today but on regular occasions, the concern we have for the significant backlog that is being created in NHS demand and need. We've talked at various points—in fact, at early stages during the pandemic—about the concern over some people opting not to come in for treatment. One of the earliest points that I made was the fall-off in people coming in for treatment for strokes. I don't believe that's because, within a number of weeks of going into lockdown, the incidence of stroke in Wales suddenly fell off a cliff. Actually, it's because people were opting not to come in. That's part of the difficulty of what we need to do to re-engineer our service progressively. As the First Minister has outlined, there are plans in place to have, if you like, green zones, where they're COVID-free or COVID-light, and red zones, where there are suspected or COVID-positive people being treated. But we need to engender enough confidence for people to use the service.

This is not a question of being wise after the event. We know that the excess deaths in Wales are more than 2,000 excess deaths since the start of the pandemic period. If we hadn't taken action, we can be awfully confident that we would have seen more deaths. So, our challenge is how we balance the different harms, the different challenges, that lockdown presents, easing out of lockdown and getting ourselves ready for what may take place over the autumn and the winter. But there's certainly no complacency within the Government or our national health service.

After you announced that health boards are looking at how they can restart planned NHS operations and cancer services, a constituent e-mailed, 'Try telling that to my friend, who has a tumour on his kidney and had his operation postponed, and my wife, who has swelling under her arm and below her ear, down to the top of her breast—no x-ray or scan, and her first physio was cancelled.' On 17 June, you said the Welsh NHS is continuing to provide urgent treatment and diagnostics for suspected cancer. A constituent received a health board letter today stating that, 'Due to the COVID-19 healthcare situation, there could be a significant wait for your investigations', and she fears she might have cancer. Did the Minister see the Panorama programme this week, warning of a possible 35,000 cancer deaths across the UK as an indirect consequence of the current pandemic? Does he have a figure for Wales? And what additional steps will the Welsh NHS now take to minimise this number?

Well, obviously, as the Member knows, I'm not in a position to comment on the individual concerns that he raises, and I'm sure he'll be raising those with the treating health board. It's a matter of fact, not opinion, that we're restarting NHS services and that urgent cancer care has always been available. However, there will have been times when operational matters, such as people isolating if they have a positive test, or their context will have affected individual parts of our service. What we're looking to do is to progressively treat more people and, as I say, to give people the confidence to come into the service.

When it comes to excess deaths from cancer, but other conditions too, as I have said, again, I am genuinely concerned, and have been for months, as you'll know from the Record, that the impact on treatment means we'll have different outcomes and harm caused in different ways. It's part of what has made our task, as a Government and a health service that work for the people of Wales, so incredibly difficult, but I am confident we're doing the right thing in restarting activity and more lives will be saved as a result.