4. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: COVID-19 Vaccine Strategy

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:34 pm on 12 January 2021.

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Photo of Rhun ap Iorwerth Rhun ap Iorwerth Plaid Cymru 3:34, 12 January 2021

Thank you for the statement. It's good to have the chance to make a few comments and ask four or five questions as well. I'm glad we now have a rough guide to the timetable that the Welsh Government is hoping to follow. I wrote to the Minister on Saturday evening and I asked for targets so we could measure performance against them. But can I just have a little bit more detail, please? You talk of hitting priority groups by spring. When is spring, for example? Are we talking start of spring or end of spring? I think we just need a bit more detail on that.

The Minister has told us that daily vaccination number updates will now be given, but I think we need more than a universal figure regularly. As I asked in that letter, we need a daily update on how many of each type of the vaccine we've received, how many of each type of the vaccine has been distributed to each health board, how many have been administered, and to which priority groups, on health board and local authority areas. I'm pleased to hear others calling for detailed data as well, including the Royal College of Physicians. This is really important in giving focus to your work and in letting the public, as well as us, whose role it is to scrutinise Government—we need to know how we're doing and we need to have confidence that we are on track.

Can I also ask for a tightening of the prioritising within the health and care workforce, after reports that some non-patient-facing staff have been vaccinated? I know that one health board says that's because vaccines have been given to some non-patient-facing staff at the end of the day, to stop any prepared doses having to be thrown away. I've suggested that perhaps we could follow the Israel model, where unused doses could actually be offered to the public on a first-come, first-served basis, at the end of the day. I also pointed out other innovations in Israel that have made them world leaders in vaccination, including seven-day working and drive-through vaccination centres, for example. You say maybe you don't want 24/7; we certainly need the seven.

I'd also like to know what you're doing on the ground to ensure that your own priority list is being followed. I know, for example, that GPs in my own constituency wanted to follow your guidelines, get all care home residents done in one day—all in one go, 500 of them; they are the number one priority—but instead, doses were given out to do some community vaccination of 80-year-olds and over. Don't get me wrong, we need our most senior citizens in the community vaccinated with real speed, but that doesn't actually follow the priority list you have given to us. Perhaps you could comment on that. If we have a priority list, we need a strategy to stick to it, surely.

I'm hearing from other GPs, in other parts of Wales, frustrations at what appears to them to be poor strategy—sending vaccines to each surgery in turn, rather than build up area-wide capability. I quote one who's made public comments in the Hywel Dda area here:

'If you are unlucky enough to be a patient in one of the later allocated surgeries then you have to wait for the vaccine—even if you are in the top priority group....This should be about priority groups not postcodes.'

And finally, there are other priorities—I hope you'd agree with me on that—beyond the top nine. I'm not suggesting deprioritising any of the top nine priority groups, but be it the police or teachers or others in public-facing roles, can you explain how you intend to expand that priority list to those who need protection most, outside the priority groups we now have?

I'll end with a sporting analogy. People have compared how things are going with the roll-out in Wales with other UK nations. It's natural that people do—we've been falling behind. The First Minister has said it's not a race, that it's a marathon not a sprint. Those who take their marathons very seriously pretty much get out of the blocks at sprint pace, and the winners pretty much sprint the whole 26 miles. I'm not talking about a race to beat other nations—that's neither here nor there—but we do need to know that we are racing forward as quickly as we can, for the benefit of the citizens of Wales, and speed is of the essence.