Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 4. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:24 pm on 8 July 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:24, 8 July 2020

I think there are three points that I'd make in response to those. The final one is to do with the point about GPs being informed. It should be available as part of the patient record; it should be available to general practice. And if the Member has individual instances that he's aware of within his constituency, then I'd be very pleased to see those to make sure the system is working as it should.

The Member will recall that's part of the reason we weren't able to—. Well, I chose not to participate in the UK testing programme, because, at an early stage, we weren't able to have the results of those tests fed back reliably and on a regular basis within our system. The Member will recall there are issues ongoing in Leicester about how regularly that information is provided within the English system.

That leads me on to my second point, which is that, of our positive cases, we do already provide information on the number of positive cases that come from the UK testing programme that we've opted into, in particular in drive-through centres, as well as that the Public Health Wales labs provide. So, yesterday, there were three positive results from the UK programme, and, together with the seven from Public Health Wales labs, that means 10, in total, positive cases across Wales.

And that goes into my third point, that, on all of the data we're currently seeing, we're seeing a positive downward trend in terms of the incidences of coronavirus, despite the fact there are two outbreaks in north Wales and the incident around Merthyr. So, that's on things like hospital admissions, positive cases, and, indeed, the use of critical care. We're all seeing things move in the right direction, and that's why we're able to make cautious but progressive steps to ease Wales out of lockdown. But the outbreaks are a reminder that none of us should become complacent, because coronavirus, sadly, has not gone away.