Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:12 pm on 15 December 2021.
Thank you. I have regular discussions with the Minister for Health and Social Services to ensure that NHS organisations do have the funding that they need to respond to the pandemic. My belief is, at the moment, that the NHS does have the funding it needs, both in terms of providing the correct kit, but also in terms of all the other work that it needs to do to respond to the pandemic and to try and undertake some of the recovery work that has been going on recently. I haven't had any further requests for funding from the NHS, but, obviously, I would be open to those discussions should additional funding be required.
This isn't my area of expertise, but I understand that chief medical officers and chief nursing officers requested that the evidence be reconsidered last weekend in the light of the new variant in relation to face masks, and the advice is that FFP3 masks are still not considered routinely appropriate, but should be provided if a local risk assessment suggests a continuing transmission risk after all other IPC measures have been put in place. If it is the case that funding is preventing any of this from happening, I would want to know that, but I don't think it would be the case, because there is sufficient funding there.