Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:42 pm on 13 July 2022.
I'm very pleased to hear that, and I do hope that Members here, in representing their constituents, will remind their health boards in their constituencies and regions that they have that discretion.
I'm also pleased to hear the Minister mention long COVID and its impact on children particularly. I am concerned that there is a lack of support for children and young people with long COVID. I've spoken to a number of parents—one who said that they'd had to wait five months for a referral, and had had to go private to a paediatrician, and paid hundreds of pounds per month for a chiropractor to give some comfort to her son. The Long Covid Kids organisation say that it's still difficult to get professional health workers, doctors and so on, to accept that what's in front of them is actually long COVID.
So, can the Minister tell us what research the Welsh Government is willing to commission and invest into long COVID, and its impact on children and young people particularly, and what can be done to ensure that that support is available for children and young people, because they will be left behind because of the time it is happening in their life cycle?