Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:59 pm on 26 January 2021.
Thank you for that series of questions. The figures produced by Public Health Wales on over-80s are for over-80s in the community. Of course, some of the over-80s in Wales will be resident in care homes, and that data is being updated. You will have seen the BBC article last week that explained the lag in the data reporting and the fact that England report data at an earlier point than ourselves. We provide data with a level of quality assurance around it, but, still, there's a data lag within that.
On the local health board breakdown, I don't have an over-80s breakdown to provide to you. As we get more information, we'll be able to provide more information. As I said in my statement, every Tuesday we'll provide information, just as every Thursday Public Health Wales will, so you can expect there to me more and more data as it's available, because I do think transparency about the data is important to engender public trust. Being transparent with the data and, as we have seen, the significant increases in vaccine delivery are key, I think, to maintaining the level of public trust and confidence we all want to see in this programme. It is very much a national mission.
Five mass vaccination centres were affected, at least, by the conditions, but a range of additional GP clinics didn't go ahead, and, again, I think for understandable reasons. Also, as the First Minister set out yesterday, and I set out at the press conference yesterday, we're aware that there were a significant number of people who didn't attend for appointments. And that's entirely understandable—the conditions in large parts of Wales in the last two days have been treacherous. So, you'd understand why people haven't attended and why those appointments are being rolled forward into the rest of the week. So, people who don't attend will still be contacted and offered an alternative date.
The reason why a range of over-70 letters are going out is that we're planning ahead in each health board when they've made really good progress with the current stage of the vaccine roll-out. It will still be the case that some over-80s in different parts of Wales won't have had their vaccine yet, just as in other UK nations. What I don't think we should do is to hold back the ability for those parts of Wales who can do that and are on schedule to do so until everyone else has caught up. As I've said repeatedly, the objective is for all of us to go as quickly as possible through the priority groups and to make sure we're protecting our most vulnerable citizens. And I completely reject the suggestion that there is a postcode lottery in our delivery. I think, if you look right across Wales, you'll see that there is a significant amount of progress being made, and I think the differences are relatively marginal, and one or two anecdotes do not paint an accurate version of the national picture.
We have 14 mobile units that are already going around helping to deliver vaccinations. We also have members of the primary care team who are delivering vaccinations to people who are housebound, and again that's substantially led by our colleagues in general practice, which is why it's such great news that at least 329 general practices across the country are engaged in this work. And I'm tremendously grateful to the whole primary care team for working together in such a really incredible way to deliver the vaccine programme. That's why we haven't just got better access, but the pace of what we're doing. It's worth pointing out that, in the last seven days, Wales has the fastest rate of vaccination per head of population compared to every other UK nation. So, as to the demands for Wales to catch up with other UK nations, we are catching up with UK nations. We're going faster than the rest of the UK at present. And it was a few weeks ago when I was facing questions about why Wales was fourth out of the four nations—we're now second and making ground on England—which I know is a significant anxiety for a range of people, but this really is a programme that is delivering and delivering at a much greater pace.
In terms of new vaccines, Wales definitely punches above its weight when it comes to genomic sequencing, understanding what's happening with current variants and newer ones as well. And again, just as I think we can all take a measure of pride in our vaccine programme and the pace that we've seen in the last few days, we should take pride in the contributions that our scientists are making to understanding the new variants, the new potential threats that exist, and what that means for the ability of our scientists, including those people in private sector research, who are looking at having a vaccination programme that continues to meet the challenges that new vaccinations will present.
And on cross-border issues, we had a particular wrinkle when a Welsh office Minister suggested last week that there was a problem with vaccines not being offered to English residents who are registered with a Welsh GP. Actually, we've had a conversation, and I had a conversation at a health Ministers' meeting across the four nations, about this to try and resolve this. My understanding is that, on cross-border vaccination, we are doing the best thing possible, in terms of that everyone who's registered with a Welsh GP can get their vaccination, including residents in care homes. But I think there are some issues to work through, potentially, with indemnity issues, about whether or not people who are resident in a care home but have an English GP can actually have that delivered by their English GP or not, and we're making sure those people are not left behind in our care home programme.
When it comes to how people feel about what's across the border, it is almost always the case that you see something on the other side and you think that it must be better over there. Actually, I think people can take real pride in the fact that, as I say, we're going faster than any other UK nation within the last seven days. I look forward to further progress, and another week to build on the 130,000 vaccines we delivered this week. I'm confident we can do even more in the week ahead.