2. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to support the workforce in the Welsh NHS? OQ55808

Llywydd, everything we do to reduce the spread of coronavirus is designed to support our NHS workforce. Those who undermine these efforts simply add to the pressures that face hard-pressed front-line staff during this uniquely challenging winter.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. As we know, our nurses and our NHS staff have been on the front line dealing with this pandemic since the start of the year. Every Thursday, we used to go out and clap and say 'thank you' to them. Though that's now stopped, we still owe a huge debt to those who put themselves at risk every day when they go to work to look after our family members who are in their care. And it's critical that we continue to say 'thank you' by providing support now and in the future. And in saying 'thank you', we must ensure that they are both kept safe and not have any anxiety about supporting their own families. I hear the warm words of the Tories about supporting our staff here, and in Westminster, but their recent actions tell us a different story. For example, they've reintroduced full value added tax on personal protective equipment, taking the money away from the NHS and giving it back to the Treasury. They've not rewarded our NHS staff with the pay awards they deserve for everything they've done for us and will do for us. Will you and your Minister support the call from the NHS staff, and urge the Government, particularly the Chancellor, who seems to find money when Tory Ministers' seats are at risk, to stop talking and start acting in the interest of our fantastic NHS staff?

Well, Llywydd, can I thank David Rees for those supplementary questions? And I absolutely agree with him—we have relied so much on our health and social care workers during this pandemic. They go into this winter having worked right through, from the spring through the summer, to restore NHS services to continue to provide for those who fall ill, and they deserve our support in every way. 

The decision to put VAT back onto personal protective equipment I think defies any sense or logic. It will create enormous new bills for the NHS and social care providers. It will create new bills for those many businesses who want to do the right thing, who invest in PPE to protect their staff and customers—businesses that we know have struggled throughout the pandemic. And now, they've got to find extra money—20 per cent over and above what they were finding only weeks ago. Now, our finance Minister wrote on 30 October to the Treasury, urging Ministers to reconsider the end to zero rating. That was very good advice, and it's a terrible shame that it does not appear to be being heeded.

As to pay awards, of course, David Rees is right. We're coming to the end of a three-year pay agreement struck with Agenda for Change staff in the NHS. We are committed as ever to partnership working—social partnership with employers and health unions. And I echo the remarks that David Rees has made. The pay review timetables and the quantum that is available to reward these workers are set by the UK Government. We are able to make different decisions in Wales about how we deploy that quantum. It's how we struck an agreement that the Welsh NHS would be a living-wage employer. But the timetable and the quantum lie in the hands of the UK Government, and I hope that they will take some notice of what our colleague David Rees has said this afternoon. 

Thank you, First Minister, for the answers so far. I'd like to direct my question to you around the Royal College of Physicians' request last week for the Government to consider the rules around discharge. We know the pressure that NHS staff face when, obviously, they can't discharge patients and accept new patients into the hospitals. Some of the regulations that the Welsh Government brought out in April, which were revised in July, require a 14-day isolation period when patients are sent home. The Royal College of Physicians believe that this should be looked at. Can you give us any encouragement as to whether the Welsh Government is looking at the discharge procedures to alleviate some of the pressures within the hospitals?

Llywydd, I thank Andrew R.T. Davies for that question. I discussed this report with the director general for health and social services and the NHS Wales chief executive, Dr Andrew Goodall, earlier in the week. And we certainly will take the report seriously. But he will remember a time earlier in the pandemic when the Welsh Government was under significant questioning about discharging people from hospitals without being clear of coronavirus. That's why the 14-day period was instituted—to make sure that people couldn't be discharged to care homes, for example, until we were completely sure that they weren't carrying coronavirus into those settings. So, the 14 days  are there for a particular clinical purpose. But the Royal College of Physicians make very important points about the health of the wider population—the wider population in hospitals, that is to say—and how that might be better served by a shorter period. And we will certainly be discussing that with them and with other colleagues in the Welsh NHS.

Minister, I know many assurances have been made about the Welsh NHS being open for business. However, I am hearing from constituents that even those working on the NHS front line cannot access routine procedures, like steroid injections for arthritis. If the NHS can't look after its own, Minister, how can it look after the wider public? Thank you.

Llywydd, we've never had a policy in Wales of moving NHS employees to the front of the queue when it comes to routine treatments. Now, what I can say to the Member is that the NHS has worked very hard to restore routine treatments in the Welsh NHS. Cancer services have recovered more or less to what they were back in April. We've got 70 per cent of out-patient activity recovered in the Welsh NHS. We will only be able—we will only be able—to sustain that level of activity in the NHS for non-coronavirus patients if we do everything we can to stem the flow of the disease here in Wales. And the single biggest contribution that anyone can make to making sure that the NHS is there for all the other things we need it to be there for is if each one of us does everything we can to bear down on the spread of this deadly virus here in Wales.