Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:24 pm on 30 September 2020.
I'm very happy to reiterate the thanks that myself and other Ministers, and other leaders of local authorities in every part of Wales, have given to all those people who've volunteered to help other people out, that's both in combating loneliness and isolation and helping with services, from the specific schemes we've had to delivering pharmacy medication to, if you like, the wider befriending and some form of social contact, albeit not the physical contact that we are used to and value. I know that this is also an issue where families and friends are taking care of each other outside organised activity as well. I have continued to do my mother's shopping, in the main, and to deliver that each week. I can't go into her home, because I present a bigger risk to her than my sister does, who has less contact, and all of those individual calculations about managing risk are taking place in families and communities around the country.
We need to take account, as I said in answer to Jayne Bryant, of the learning from the first six months of the pandemic, of our understanding of the benefits and disbenefits of a medical conditions list, and we will then set that out for people on the former shielded list, but for the country at large, because, whilst we're seeing coronavirus cases rise, we've been very clear that people on the former shielded list should be particularly vigilant in following the advice on restricting the number of contacts they have, because, actually, managing your own contacts, restricting them to as few as you need to have, obeying the rules, and, indeed, having good hand hygiene and following the whole-nation requirements, are especially important for that group of people with a medical vulnerability. But, as I say, it's a more rounded approach we need to take, and that comes from learning not just from the figures, but also from our direct contact with people who were formerly shielded, and I'm more than happy to keep not just the Chamber but the country updated about the changing advice and decisions that we make.