6. What measures are in place to ensure that hospitals can continue to provide acute care not related to COVID-19? OQ56140

Thank you. The ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic has seen considerable change to acute care services in Wales. Practitioners continue to respond with agility and innovation to meet the requirements of this exceptional situation that balances an increase in demand with the levels of COVID-19 cases and the resulting and unavoidable pressures.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. I'm sure we would all in the Senedd want to pass our congratulations on to healthcare staff who've been able to provide a remarkable amount of non-related-to-COVID care in this terrible public health emergency. However, we now know that, as the second wave has been so much more serious than the first, even, nearly half of in-patients, for example, in Cwm Taf Morgannwg are there with COVID, and I don't think that pattern is atypical to many other areas around the United Kingdom and Wales, and that, unfortunately, some urgent operations are now being cancelled. We need a plan as we move out of the COVID phase with the vaccination, so that those who had urgent operations postponed are treated as soon as possible and that we make a very careful risk assessment of all the people who had elective surgery and urgent surgery delayed.

I think the Member makes a very sensible point. If you get your news from BBC, then you'll have seen this week the series they're running on the very real pressures in our healthcare system. The hospital may be in England, but, actually, the pressures are real in every part of the United Kingdom, and that COVID care does mean we've had to interrupt non-COVID care. I have explained previously that the expansion of critical care up to about 150 per cent of capacity, in terms of its use, means that people have had to be deployed from other areas. Other areas like theatres have had to be turned over for use in a critical care-style environment. That means we can't undertake non-COVID care in the same way, and it's not just elective care. There are urgent services that are being interrupted because of the measures we are having to take to save as many lives as possible.

That, in itself, will produce anxiety and frustration, but also, potentially, greater harm, because the NHS may not be able to recover all of the harm that is caused. It's why we all need to pull together to do the right thing through this extraordinary crisis we're living through, but the Member and others can have confidence that not only is our NHS doing the right thing through the height of the pandemic, but we are, of course, planning for the necessary recovery, including the point the Member makes about trying to risk assess and understand the change in the position of people who have had their treatment delayed. That's why I say that this mammoth task will dominate the whole of the next Welsh Parliament in healthcare terms. Recovery won't be easy or quick, but it's entirely necessary, and our NHS understands and is already trying to plan for that reality.

Finally, question 7, Helen Mary Jones.