6. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Update on COVID and Winter Pressures

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:23 pm on 20 September 2022.

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Photo of Rhun ap Iorwerth Rhun ap Iorwerth Plaid Cymru 5:23, 20 September 2022

We need to ensure robust and resilient plans are in place, the Minister tells us. I agree with the Member for the Conservatives saying that those plans should already be in place. How on earth has Welsh Government left it until late September before being able to publish those assurances? Maybe the Minister can address that further.

But I would like to focus, if I can, on the worrying findings of a report published earlier this month and in print this week by the New Scientist, telling us that there have been well over 20,000—22,500—more deaths than we would expect in the UK between April and August this year, around 10 per cent more than the five-year average. It's thought that COVID has contributed to that directly, with figures suggesting there were twice as many deaths involving COVID-19 directly this summer compared with the summer of last year. But that only accounts for perhaps half of the excess deaths. For the rest, it is thought that indirect impacts of the pandemic could be at play here, and, in fact, that they are likely to be. We have a disrupted healthcare system. The cancer tests and treatment delays of lockdown are being felt now in the latter stages of 2022. Delays, of course, cost lives, which is why there was so much anger at treatments and appointments that were due to take place yesterday being cancelled.

Two questions arise from this. Those figures on excess deaths do detail the situation in Scotland and in Northern Ireland, but we don't have figures for Wales. Will the Minister commit to investigating how many excess deaths occurred in Wales? Because she surely will need that kind of data before being able to assess what led to what appears to be a significant surge in deaths. Don't those figures for the summer, assuming—and I think we can—that Wales will follow a similar pattern to Scotland and Northern Ireland, but coupled with the warnings that we've heard from the Minister herself today, tell us that we really cannot wait a day longer for that robust plan for this winter? It's already late in the day, and those figures in the New Scientist suggest to me that the usual winter pressures could be compounded this year by a general pattern of increased deaths already in place. That, I'm sure the Minister will agree, is a matter of some concern.