Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 4 November 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 1:45, 4 November 2020

As I've indicated, we have to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, because not dealing with it, not taking effective action, will undermine our ability to treat effectively people with non-COVID health conditions. The plan is to make sure that we have an operating framework that allows us to carry on treating non-COVID patients. I don't want to see our national health service turned into a COVID service and nothing else when it comes to hospital activity. That would indicate that our system is at the point of being overwhelmed and we know that that would translate into real harm for people in every single one of the communities that we have the privilege of representing in the Welsh Parliament.

The future is about the future plan for recovery, so it's a twin approach: managing the position now, maintaining non-COVID activity, as our operating framework sets out, wanting to continue to, if possible, increase the level of non-COVID activity, but certainly trying to protect the activity that we've restarted. And then, when we are through the pandemic, we will need to be able to finalise the plan that is already being worked on to recover from where we have got to in all areas of activity that have come under extraordinary pressure in these extraordinary times that we're living through.