Protecting the Most Vulnerable

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:37 pm on 15 September 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:37, 15 September 2020

Llywydd, I thank the Member for those points. I agree with very much of what she said—that the impact of responding to coronavirus falls especially hard on those people who have the least ability to be able to recognise what is happening around them and then to respond to it, whether that be very elderly people who have suffered from dementia, whether it be people with learning disabilities, and so on. And it is very important that we learn from the experience of the last six months. My colleague Jane Hutt has chaired five meetings of the disability equality forum over that period. It's been attended as well by the chief medical officer and by my colleague Julie James. And all that is about trying to learn from the lived experience of people who, as in Angela Burns's contact's case, have had to live with the astonishing burden that coronavirus has placed on some members of our society. So, I think the best assurance we can give those people is to listen carefully to them, and to hear from them about ways in which, were we to face a further period of the sort we faced back in March and April, we have learned from the ways in which they have coped with this experience. And where we can do more to support them and can design our public services in a way that is better able to respond to their needs, then that is exactly what we will try to do.