6. What plans does the Minister have to roll out asymptomatic workplace testing in Wales? OQ56326

Thank you. In our revised testing strategy, we have set out our plans to support asymptomatic testing in workplaces in order to safeguard the vulnerable, and to maintain key services. I have confirmed today the wider roll-out of asymptomatic workplace testing for employers of more than 50 people. 

Thank you, Minister. The aerospace sector is worth more than £1.4 billion in Wales and employs over 11,000 workers, including many people from Torfaen. However, it has also been very badly hit by the COVID pandemic, and those workplaces may well not have either the resources or the ability to undertake their own workplace testing. What assurances can you give that the new strategy you published today will prioritise workplaces like this that we really need to retain for high-quality, highly skilled jobs in Wales?

I think the fourth element of the testing strategy, testing to maintain, will be relevant here. And we recognise that, not just those larger employers with 50 or more employees, but in particular, those employees who can't work from home who may still need to work in closer proximity with others are ones we want to prioritise. I think that, actually, not just your own employer that you're referencing, but more broadly in the sector, this should help those businesses. And we're looking to have an approach with the guidance that we've published not just to make that testing more widely available, but to have an approach that brings both the employer and workplace trade unions together to have a shared understanding of how that testing will be used, how it will be administered and how it will protect the business and the jobs and, of course, the health of the whole workforce, with the early warning that it will give with lateral flow devices with a rapid test result and then the ability to have the expectation of a confirmatory PCR test result if someone does test positive. I think this is good news, and I hope that the business in your constituency takes up the offer and talks to their local team about how to access these tests and how to do so in a way that has the support of the workforce as well.

Minister, I just wonder if you could give us some indication of what's been learnt from trying to carry out tests in schools. Because, as I've mentioned before, in my region, certainly, there was at one point a definite disconnect between school staff and NHS leads about who should take responsibility for the administration of lateral flow tests. So, I'm wondering, can you give us an indication now about who should take a lead in the workplace—and that's whichever sector we're talking about? And how will workers who cannot or will not take a test be deployed?

Well, your second question is really a matter for employers, that's why it's important that they work that through with their workplace representatives, including, crucially, trade unions. Because the tests are there as a tool to help protect the workforce, to help us to have early warning of those people who don't have symptoms. And as we understand it, about a third of people don't display classic symptoms, but nevertheless do have coronavirus. We also know that lateral flow tests have quick results, but also, they're not as accurate as a PCR test—that's why anyone who tests positive should then get themselves tested with a PCR test as well, but they need to go home and isolate from the point they test positive with a lateral flow test. As we're seeing a reduction in transmission and prevalence of the virus, the accuracy of the lateral flow tests—I think that second test with PCR is even more important then as well.

Then, when it comes to how to administer the tests, part of the offer for businesses is about the training on the undertaking of those tests as well. We're not going to be in a position to have healthcare workers going in and administering the level of tests we're providing. The current tests we've made available to early years and education and health and care will amount to about a quarter of a million tests being delivered each week. We don't now have healthcare staff to deliver all of these tests. We've had to have approval from the regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, on how tests can be undertaken by individuals, but the training to undertake those, to make sure they're taken appropriately, is really important.

We accept that in providing it this way it's the same challenge that every other UK country faces too, but even if we accept that not every test will be taken in the optimum manner, we will identify a range of people who are asymptomatic whom we would not otherwise have identified. It will help to take positive cases that would not otherwise be identified out of workplaces and out of circulation. The self-isolation will help to reduce the transmission of the virus.

So, there is no pretence that this is a perfect, error-free approach, either in Wales or any other part of the UK, but it is part of reducing the prevalence of the virus and getting more people to self-isolate appropriately to reduce the harm, economically and in healthcare terms, that coronavirus has caused.