2. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to alleviate pressure on NHS Wales this winter? OQ57435

Thank you. Llywydd, the most significant recent steps to alleviate pressure on the health service this winter are the vaccination booster campaign and the preventative measures taken to mitigate the impact of the omicron wave of coronavirus.

Thank you, First Minister. Over the past week, three people in my region have contacted me regarding problems they faced in getting an ambulance for a neighbour or a member of the family. In one case, the individual was suffering a heart attack and her neighbour was told that an ambulance wasn't available for up to six hours and that they needed to find an alternative way of getting her to hospital. The phone was put down on her, as she was told that there were more calls coming through, leaving the neighbour to phone around to try and find somebody to take that individual to hospital. Fortunately, they managed to find a lift, and the individual did receive urgent treatment and she is now recovering at home. But it would have been a very different story if someone hadn't been available to take her to hospital. What support is being given by the Welsh Government to the ambulance service and our hospitals in order to ensure that services are available to take people in critical need to hospitals, particularly in areas where car ownership is not high and public transport or taxis aren't easily available?

Llywydd, I thank Heledd Fychan for that supplementary question. Of course, I am very pleased to hear that things turned out as they did in the case that she mentioned. The impact of omicron and coronavirus on the ambulance service is very great. There are more people unwell in the ambulance trust in Wales than in any other sector throughout the whole of the health service. So, we've done a number of things as a Government: more funding, more staff, more training, more opportunities to work differently, and at the moment we're also getting help from the armed forces, and there will be more armed forces personnel available to assist the ambulance service over coming weeks until the end of March than there has been at any time during the whole pandemic. Now, that doesn't mean that everything will return to how it was before coronavirus. One of the problems facing ambulance service staff is that the number of people who require their assistance and who are suffering from coronavirus has also increased, and that takes more time—they have to wear PPE, they have to disinfect the ambulance, and so on and so forth—and that slows down the opportunities to get out on the road once again to help others. So, the situation is challenging, but we as a Government are doing everything that we can to support the ambulance service, and now we have other sources of help too.

First Minister, the Welsh NHS is obviously under significant pressure at the present time due to the pandemic, but also we're aware that, in pre-pandemic times, the Welsh NHS was under significant pressure at this time of year. We of course need to relieve pressure on A&E by encouraging the use of other services, such as minor injuries units and using pharmacies, rolling out regional surgical hubs to deal with the treatment backlog, and also making it far easier to access general practitioner services. First Minister, can you provide an update on the areas I've just outlined?

Well, I can help with a number of them, Llywydd, otherwise I would be here for the whole afternoon, I think. But the first point to make, as I know Russell George will recognise, is that those other parts of the system are also under significant pressure at the moment. I saw only earlier today the impact on the pharmacy profession, the number of community pharmacists who are ill at the moment with coronavirus or self-isolating and therefore not able to be offering the services that otherwise are such a very helpful addition to the NHS.

So, the Welsh Government's actions cover quite a range of things, including many of the things but not all that the Member mentioned. Certainly, it involves the strengthening of community pharmacies—I was very glad to see that we've reached an agreement recently on a contract with community pharmacy that will mean that there will be an extended range of services available in more parts of Wales, so that more patients can safely and clinically properly be looked after in the community pharmacy field. We have concluded contract negotiations with the Welsh general practitioners committee as well. That will have a particular focus on access to the primary care team, not simply to GPs, but as I always say here, that wider team of people who provide services in primary care and can again very often see people in a way that saves the time of people who have a more rounded set of skills and are therefore able to look after more challenging cases. So, in every part of the system, the aim of the Welsh Government is to reinforce the health service during this time of crisis, but to do it in a way that contributes to the long-term recovery of the NHS when we finally find ourselves moving beyond the current pandemic.