4. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Winter Protection Plan

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:57 pm on 15 September 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 4:57, 15 September 2020

It's a completely fair point the Member makes, and others have alluded to as well in earlier questions, about elective care and doing as much as we possibly can do, and how we transparently set that out. You will see plans, when we publish the operational framework and quarter 3 and quarter 4 plans that I expect to come back in for us to be able to publish through October, for how we want to maintain elective activity, the sort of elective activity work we'll be able to do, and then health boards working transparently with their staff and the patients they're serving to try to explain how they're working through that. But, as I say, it's important to recognise that I don't think we're going to be able to keep up with the demand that is there. In normal times, we'd see a different position. And, actually through the first three, four years of this term, we actually made significant and material moves forward every year in the time that people waited, in doing more elective activity and the transformation of that. We're going to a significant step backwards because of the way the pandemic has interrupted not just a period of time elective activity didn't take place, but the way our service operates. 

And, finally, to say thank you for the recognition of the work that was done, not just by myself, but Andrew Morgan, the leader of RCT, who I think has been highly impressive throughout not just the pandemic, but in dealing with this particular situation over the weekend, but, in particular, the team at Public Health Wales, Cwm Taf Morgannwg and the Welsh ambulance service, who, from a challenge that we knew about late on Friday evening, by 10 o'clock the next day, had a Welsh solution in place to make sure that testing was protected. It involved work late at night and through Saturday—not always popular with families, as I can attest to myself—but it meant that the public had a service they could rely on that next day.