UK COVID-19 Inquiry

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:38 pm on 28 March 2023.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:38, 28 March 2023

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.