2. Will the First Minister provide an update on the Welsh Government's engagement with the UK COVID-19 inquiry? OQ59377

I thank Heledd Fychan for the question. Llywydd, the Welsh Government has been granted core participant status in modules 1, 2, 2B and module 3 of the public inquiry into COVID-19. Through our legal status as a material provider, the Welsh Government is supplying a significant volume of evidence to the inquiry to enable it to properly scrutinise action taken in Wales.

Diolch, Prif Weinidog. Following last week's visit to the Senedd by COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru, a number of constituents from South Wales Central who lost loved ones to COVID-19 have contacted me regarding the nosocomial investigation. I understand that the interim report is imminent, but many bereaved families are concerned, as they still haven't heard anything at all in relation to their loved ones, whilst others have received letters telling them that COVID wasn't the cause of death, despite it being on the death certificate. Their understanding is that only a coroner would be able to change the cause of death, yet families are being told this without being presented with any evidence to support the change. So, rather than receive answers about how their relative contracted COVID-19 in hospital, they are now having to fight, once more, for the cause of death to be acknowledged. Can you please confirm what the purpose of these investigations is: learn lessons and provide answers to families, or is it an exercise to try and reduce the official number of COVID deaths in Wales? Surely, this once again illustrates the need for a Wales-specific COVID inquiry.

Wel, Llywydd, the Member's allegation is both offensive and absurd. Of course the efforts that are being made are not some conspiratorial effort to change the number of people who died from COVID here in Wales. What an utterly, utterly absurd allegation to make here on the floor of the Senedd. The efforts that are being made are led by clinicians—are they part of your conspiracy as well? The purpose of the investment that the Welsh Government has made, the efforts that those clinicians are making, are to provide for family members an understanding of the way in which their family members were treated and what happened to them while they were in the care of the health service. By the end of February, 5,765 cases had been reviewed, with a further 2,301 in progress; there are still a further 10,320 cases to be investigated. Now, in line with everything that was said here on the floor of the Senedd, a national report of learning from this programme is due to be published by the end of this month, and that will lead in time to a comprehensive national learning report, to be published in 2024, at the end of the programme. Individual organisations will also publish their own reports, in line with the reporting requirements that the Minister set out for them when the additional funding to support them in this work was found. The Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Wales, Llywydd, meets with COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice; he met with them last on 16 March. Where there are concerns about the way the system is working, there are ways in which that can legitimately be raised, and those concerns, which are not founded on the sorts of allegations that the Member made, can be properly investigated, and if there are things that need to be improved, then, of course, we will want to see that happen. 

As the First Minister will be aware, COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru have submitted considerable concerns to the UK COVID-19 inquiry abut the capability of the Welsh NHS during the pandemic. The list is quite substantial, and one particular point I would like to pick up is their concern regarding the lack of long-term investment in IT infrastructure and digitisation of NHS Wales. We know that NHS Wales is lagging considerably behind its English counterpart on its IT infrastructure, and this ultimately has an impact in many different ways. For example, we have particular issues in interoperability of systems between primary and secondary care and between health systems and the police, which is vital in terms of helping to address mental health issues. With this in mind, First Minister, does this Government have any plans to now ring-fence resources for digital transformation to enable upgraded and new IT systems? And do you believe that we should have a national minimum standard for IT equipment in NHS Wales? Thank you.

Well, Llywydd, I certainly agree about the importance of digital investment in the health service, and, here in Wales, we have a national digital service, there for many years. I don't accept what the Member said in one of his throwaway remarks about Wales 'lagging behind'. In fact, we have shown the way in Wales as to how a genuinely national service can tackle some of the very real issues there are in other parts of the United Kingdom, where the service has been atomised, where there is no national approach and where there are real vulnerabilities as a result. I wish we had more money to invest in this area, Llywydd, of course I do, but, as Joel James will know, in the second year of the spring statement period, we have £1 million for every capital need that we have in Wales. We invest, I think, significantly and in a sustained way in making sure that those digital opportunities that Natasha Asghar mentioned are made available here in Wales. If we had more opportunities, through a proper capital settlement, then we would be able to do more in that field as in many others.