COVID-19: Testing for Care Home Staff

Part of 6. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:01 pm on 15 July 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:01, 15 July 2020

I think it's worth reflecting on the—. I referred earlier, acting Deputy Presiding Officer, to the comments made by the Royal College of Pathologists; it's worth reminding Members of what they said. This from the president of the Royal College of Pathologists: 

'Testing is not something that is just done and counted. It is a process with clinical purposes for individual patients, for those who care for them and for the population at large. It is a conscious and targeted use of valuable materials and skilled professionals within the context of a pathway and purpose.'

And I simply don't agree with the Member's conclusion that it is a risky measure to signal that care home testing will reduce in August, if we continue to see very low levels of prevalence. It's a mark of our success that we would still be maintaining a regular programme, but on a different cycle. And our ability then to still act, where we do have positive cases of coronavirus, will remain unchanged and we will be able to quickly and swiftly move to test whole cohorts, if we need to.

To be fair, though, I have had the advantage of seeing the technical advisory group's updated advice on asymptomatic testing, and I think, when the Member has an opportunity to read that, as it will be published today, he'll see that it isn't as straightforward as implementing asymptomatic testing for any and every individual as a way to keep the whole country safe. There are real challenges in particular in false positives that come from it, when we have such low prevalence. So, it's about testing for a point and a purpose and that's exactly what we've set out today and it's underpinned by the latest evidence and advice we have.

And when it comes to domiciliary care workers, I've already indicated that we will be looking to have domiciliary care workers in the next wave of antibody testing, to understand the surveillance, from a surveillance perspective, of where we are with coronavirus. So, we're thinking about what to do, how to keep workers safe and how to keep the people they care for safe, and that underpins the way in which we approach this, as we always have done, as we look to keep Wales safe and get ourselves ready for what, I'm afraid, is going to be an even more uncomfortable winter than we're used to.