8. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Welsh hospitals? OQ55809

I thank the Member for that question. We work closely with health boards to support them in managing the spread of coronavirus in hospitals. All outbreaks are reviewed and lessons are shared between health boards as they emerge.

Thank you, First Minister. The fact that COVID-19 has been allowed to spread in our hospitals is a clear failure of Government policy and a dereliction of the Welsh Government's duty to protect our most vulnerable. First Minister, why is there no clear demarcation between COVID and non-COVID patients? Why are we testing just over half of all hospital admissions? And, First Minister, surely you agree with me that the best way to protect our NHS is to test everyone and to dedicate certain hospitals for treating those infected with COVID-19? Diolch.

Well, Llywydd, I have to take issue with what was a nonsensical introduction to what turned out to be a sensible question at the end of it. The sensible point that the Member managed to make was about the way in which NHS premises in Wales are creating separate facilities for people suffering from coronavirus in order to be able to protect facilities for those people who need to use the NHS for every other reason. Earlier today, Llywydd, the director general and chief executive of the NHS took the Welsh Government press conference and dealt directly with the issue of the spread of coronavirus within hospitals. He said that, of course,

'We regret every case of hospital-acquired Covid. But I want to be clear',

Dr Goodall said,

'this is not as simple as a failure of hand-washing or poor infection control procedures.'

He went on to explain the ways in which coronavirus can still, despite everything that our staff do to safeguard those closed settings and those people who work and are treated within them—despite all those efforts, he set out the ways in which this highly infectious virus can still make its way into those places, and how incredibly difficult it can be to prevent its spread in busy healthcare environments, especially when we see 100 people with coronavirus being admitted to our hospitals now every day. And I think just a little more understanding, on behalf of the Member, for everything that those front-line staff do to deal with those really difficult circumstances would not have gone amiss, given the questions we've had earlier today in marking the ongoing efforts that those people make to keep us all safe.

People in England who are clinically vulnerable and can't work from home have been given new shielding advice, and the over-60s have been advised to minimise contact with others. In Wales the advice to the clinically vulnerable group, including the over-60s, is to continue to work if you can't work from home. Your advice says your employer should be able to explain to you the measures that they've put in place to keep you safe at work. Now, I'm sure you can imagine that this isn't cutting it with all of those who face an impossible choice. As one Rhondda constituent put it, it's either shield and have no support financially, or work and face long-term complications with our health or even death. The mental health pressures that go with this kind of choice cannot be overstated. The clinically vulnerable need more protection at work and this is especially the case if people work in high-risk settings like hospitals, schools, prisons and other closed settings. Now, I understand that the details of future regulations are still being worked on, but will you give us a commitment today that you'll undertake to give this protection to people who are in work and clinically very vulnerable?

Well, Llywydd, I ought to make it clear to Members that it was not my advice that the Member was quoting; she was quoting the advice of the Chief Medical Officer for Wales in the letter that he has sent to all 130,000 people who were on the shielding list, and he provides them with the best clinical advice that he is able to provide to them. 

I know that Leanne Wood will well recognise the mental health impact of shielding as well. This is one of the things that we were told very powerfully by the shielded population earlier in the year during that long period when we asked them not to go to work, not to go out shopping, not to leave their homes for exercise. The message back from them was that that had a profound impact, in many cases, on people's sense of mental health and well-being. And all of that is summed up in the advice that the chief medical officer provides to people, trying to balance the different harms that come from asking people to live their lives in that highly restricted way.

But I do agree with Leanne Wood about the points that she makes about people who are in work when they are highly vulnerable. I think the letter deals with that in a more sensitive way than maybe she has implied, but I am happy to say to her that that is an issue that we will keep under review, and if there is better advice that can be provided to people and to employers about the way in which they respond to people who are of that age and who are clinically vulnerable—the way that they are protected in the workplace—then of course we're very pleased to go on doing that.

I thank the First Minister.