Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 23 February 2021.
Well, Llywydd, I thank Helen Mary Jones for that important supplementary question, and I think there is some good news coming for those families who are absolutely understandably concerned. I've seen the advice that the Minister will consider today on this matter in relation to prioritisation of group 6. Helen Mary Jones will know that the broad category of number 6 is underlying health conditions, and within that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation identifies people with severe and profound learning disabilities. But the advice that I've seen going to the Minister advocates an inclusive approach, where the approach is less on gatekeeping than on ensuring that nobody entitled to vaccination is missed out.
So, the proposal is to use GP registers of people with a learning disability as the basis of identifying eligible individuals, and that that should be supplemented by professional judgment and wider local knowledge, held, for example, by third sector organisations or by local authorities. And the advice goes beyond simple identification to creating the right conditions for people with a learning disability to be able to come forward comfortably, to feel at ease in receiving vaccination and thus to maximise take-up. So, the Minister will be considering that advice today, but I hope the Member is reassured that the approach that it takes is not one in which we take 'severe and profound' as a definition designed to minimise the number of people who can come through in that group, but to take a more inclusive approach, making sure that nobody who is entitled misses out. That is the approach we will want to take in Wales.
And, Llywydd, maybe I should just say that the fact that we have GP registers of people with a learning disability, of course, is due to a very early decision made in the very first term of devolution, when David Melding brought forward a proposition for an annual health check for people with learning disabilities, supported around the Chamber at the time, and, as a result, we have these registers and are able now to use them, put them to good work, to make sure that people with learning disabilities are able to be vaccinated in line with that group 6 priority.