3. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Update on COVID-19

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:04 pm on 8 March 2022.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 3:04, 8 March 2022

Diolch yn fawr. Thanks very much, Russell. I'm glad that you're welcoming the lifting of restrictions. Of course, our job is to keep Wales safe. Other Governments keep their own people safe, but our responsibility is to do it in the way that we believe is correct for us, and we do that by always trying to follow the evidence and the science. But we've always been very clear that, actually, it was always going to be the case that we would go in the same direction as the UK Government, it was just a question of timing. We believe that the timing that we announced on Friday will work for us. We are in a situation where, of course, we're not lifting those restrictions yet—we're keeping them in place for another month, effectively. That will ease us into, hopefully, a warmer time. We know that there's a seasonality to the shape of the virus and the way it hits our communities. We're hoping, as things get warmer, that we will be in a situation by 24 June, of course, where there will be no restrictions anymore and it will be a very different position. So, we're not the same as England, and that's the reason why we are in a different place from England.

We have started discussions with TAC in terms of what that might look like in future, and we're very keen to make sure that we keep in place an infrastructure that would allow us to spring back into action if we were to see a new and dangerous variant. Of course, that is made more difficult because of the restricted funding that we're getting now from the UK Government. Certainly, in terms of COVID alert levels, we will keep them on the back burner ready and, of course, we'll need to keep an eye on developments. Nobody wants to go back into lockdown, but I do think it's irresponsible to say that we would never do that. We have no idea what's ahead of us, Russell, and it always makes sense to make sure that you have a range of options available to you in terms of being able to respond.

In terms of lessons learnt, we have been trying to learn lessons all the way along during the pandemic. We're continuing to learn those lessons, but, of course, there will be more lessons to learn, and I'm sure some of those will come out during the course of the inquiry. You asked about the core participant status for COVID-bereaved families. I know that the First Minister has discussed this issue with the bereaved families for justice. The inquiry will set out the process for designating the core participant status, and we don't know yet how the chair is going to do this. What we wouldn't want to do is to do anything that would end up causing more harm than helping that situation.

Certainly, when it comes to waiting lists, we will be publishing our planned care plan in April and, obviously, we'll be looking at how we can see better regional co-operation in terms of trying to address that backlog that we've been looking at. And just to emphasise that, actually, I thought that the NHS did a remarkable job in December. We only saw an increase of 0.2 per cent in December. That's despite the fact that we asked them to concentrate and to roll out the booster at a superfast pace. So, I'm really pleased, actually, that things are already moving in the NHS. Of course, we've got a long way to go. On our figures, of course, we count very differently from the way that they count their waiting lists in England. In terms of the 21-day review, I think it makes sense for us to continue with this. I think we need to consider whether that is necessary beyond 24 June.