2. Will the Minister make a statement on care home deaths from COVID-19 in Wales? OQ56498

The Office for National Statistics has reported 1,643 registered deaths involving COVID-19 to Welsh residents in care homes up to 5 March. This is around 21 per cent of all deaths involving COVID-19.

On 13 March last year, you issued a directive to all health boards to postpone all non-urgent elective activity to allow them to prepare for the expected increase in workload in dealing with the pandemic. Those were the words of your Government to me in a letter. At the same time, the Welsh Government was clearing NHS beds by sending patients from hospitals into care homes without them being tested. It was a staggering thing to do. The results were fatal and brought great tragedy for many families. As of February 2021, your own Government statistics show that deaths in care homes since March 2020 are 43 per cent higher than the same period two years ago. Your party is now calling for an independent inquiry into the UK Government's handling of the pandemic in London. Propel, in 'Our Contract for Wales', has committed to implementing an independent inquiry in Wales on day one after the election in May. Given the outrageous numbers of avoidable deaths in care homes and your Government's actions having made the problem much worse, do you accept that there must be an independent inquiry into your own Government's handling of the COVID crisis?

I thank Neil McEvoy for that question. It is obviously an absolute tragedy what has happened in care homes, and my sympathy and the Government’s sympathy is with all the residents and the families who have been affected. There is no question about the tragedy that has occurred. I think the Member will recognise that most individuals who reside in care homes in Wales are the older, more vulnerable members of society, and they are one of the groups that is most at risk from the serious consequences of contracting the disease.

The analysis that's been undertaken by Public Health Wales, looking at the risk factors for the outbreaks of COVID-19 in care homes, suggested that the effect of discharge on outbreaks in care homes was very low. And, also, there's been recent research by Swansea University that has tracked patients from hospital through discharge into care homes, and that's estimated up to 1.8 per cent of discharges from hospitals into care homes could have been carrying the infection. The factors that influenced the outcome was really the size of a care home in both the number of the registered beds as well as the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community, and that had the greatest impact on the number of deaths. But, whatever caused this, it is a tragedy and, of course, I support an investigation into when and why this happened. I think that's absolutely the right thing to do and we must learn from what has happened.  

Minister, one of the things that is helping to protect care home residents, of course, is the success of the vaccination programme in care homes across Wales. But there are individuals who will have received their first dose in a care home and then returned to a different care setting, sometimes their own home, without having had a second dose. What action is the Welsh Government taking to make sure that those individuals are properly tracked so that they can get their second dose? I've had a number of constituents in my own area who do not appear to be getting their call-backs for those important second doses to give them the full protection that the vaccine can provide. 

I thank Darren Millar for that question. The vaccination programme does continue to progress well. In care homes, nearly 96 per cent of care home residents have now received their first dose of the vaccine, which is great progress. He makes an important point about people moving to different settings and ensuring that the follow-up dose is given, and we will certainly take steps to ensure that we alert settings to that possibility so that people can be followed up. I haven't been notified of any incidents myself, but if the Member has been notified of these incidents it's obviously very important that those are followed up.