Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:39 pm on 20 September 2022.
Well, an all-Wales inquiry would not be of any help to someone wanting to look forward, as the bulk of the Member's question did, to conditions in care homes in Wales over the coming winter. I'm grateful to the Member for the question, Llywydd, because it just enables me to remind everybody in the Chamber and beyond that coronavirus has not gone away. We saw, earlier in this summer, record numbers of people falling ill with the omicron wave compared to any other part of the pandemic period. And, although the link between falling ill and severe illness has been successfully eroded by vaccination, just being ill with coronavirus itself is a difficult experience, and the more vulnerable you are, the more difficult it is likely to be. So, that is why we have prioritised care home residents for the autumn booster campaign. First letters inviting people to come forward for vaccination were issued on 15 August. The first vaccinations happened on 1 September. Yesterday, while most people were focusing on the events that were happening at Westminster Abbey, vaccination teams in Wales were out there in care homes making sure that all those vulnerable residents had the earliest possible opportunity to be vaccinated.
That's a general message that I hope Members here will help to convey to the population at large. There is a fear amongst the professional community that, because people feel that coronavirus is in the rear-view mirror, we will not have the take-up of vaccination that we would have seen in earlier waves. Nothing will be more important to do on the day that you get the invitation than to go and have that vaccination, and that is particularly true, of course, for elderly and vulnerable residents in our care homes, which is why they have been put, in Wales, at the front of the queue.