 Hello and welcome, Shamai Akruso. My name is Jamie. I am 16 years old and from the Vale of Glamorgan. I am a youth advocate for Plan International UK, a charity campaigning for girls' rights. You're probably wondering why I'm here. Well today is International Day of the Girl and girls, like me, are taking over. We are raising our voices, demanding a seat at the table and getting our voices heard. So today, I have taken over from Mark Drakeford and I am your first minister for the day. I want to use this platform to tell everyone in Wales that girls' voices must be heard and that we are a part of making the political decisions that shape our lives. It's critical to achieving gender equality and a better world for everyone. So as your first minister for the day, I'd like to welcome everyone to this week's press conference focused on health and preparing for the upcoming winter. I will pass now to Alina Edmorgan, the Minister for Health and Social Services. Diolch yn fawr, Jamie, a bod yda i bawb. Nid o'r cynnif i ddechrau, dwi'n siarad ddim i'n poblwch i Beldroydwyr Cymru, yn ei gêm yn arbennyswysdur heno, poblwch i chi farched. Before I start, I'd like to wish our footballers all the best in the World Cup playoff match this evening. Good luck, we're incredibly proud of you already and we really want you to sock it to them this evening. Fel dweud o'r Jamie, dwi isi cael bwntio heddiw ar y gwaith i ni wedi bod yn ei ddi'i baratoi'r gwarosanaeth iechyd ar gyfer y gaeaf sydd i ddod. Dwi hefyd i siarad a mae'r hyn y gafwn i gyd neid i gadw'n hyn yn iach dros y gaeaf. Now the winter is usually a busy and challenging time for our NHS and care services in here and across the UK because of the colder weather and an increase in respiratory viruses like coronavirus and flu, we've got to prepare for that. Over the past two years, while we've been busy responding to the pandemic, we've thankfully seen lower levels of the flu virus. We shouldn't be complacent about flu, it's a very nasty illness which is easily spread, particularly amongst more vulnerable and older people. Each year we provide a free flu jab programme on the NHS for eligible people to prevent people from falling ill. Now I would urge everyone eligible to make time for their flu jab this year, especially if you're a health or care worker. It really is one of the best things we can do to keep ourselves well, to keep others well this winter. Cases of respiratory syncytial virus or RSV also usually peak in the winter months as well, but this year the season has started earlier than usual, which may be related to the pandemic. Yn anffodus diwrn coronavirus dim wedi deflanu eto, diwrn pandemic hef ddor i ben, o'r mas y fyddiad i ached y bydd y World Health Organisation wedi dweud i bod nhw'n credu bod y diwedd mewn golog. In the last couple of weeks here and across the UK, we've seen an increase in the number of infections in the community and an increase in the number of people admitted to hospital. BA5, subtype of the Omicron variant, remains the dominant strain at the moment, but the virus is continuing to mutate and we're seeing new variants emerging all of the time. Vaccination remains our best defence against coronavirus, which is why I continue to encourage everyone to say yes to their autumn COVID booster vaccine if they're invited for one. We're making really good progress with the booster programme. Last week more than 360,000 people were vaccinated. That's an increase of over 92,000 on the previous week. So it's never too late to have any of your COVID vaccines, whether it's your first or your fourth. Your health board website will have more details, but on top of that, we can all take a few simple steps to help us stay well this winter like washing our hands often, wearing a face covering in crowded indoor places and staying at home if we're ill. I want to reassure you, Wales currently remains in a COVID-stable position. This means that while we can expect to see more infections over the winter period and we're planning for this, we don't expect to see a rise in cases result in unsustainable pressure on our health and care services. Health boards and NHS trusts have been working with local authorities to prepare their winter plans. They've planned for increases in cases of all these winter viruses as well as other medical emergencies. Now, we know that pressure on our health emergency services is intense and has not decreased significantly over the summer. Earlier this year, we invested an extra £3 million to recruit more emergency ambulance staff, and I'm pleased to say this winter 100 new ambulance clinicians will start work in Wales, and that's on top of the 250 that we recruited over the past two years and that are already at work. Now, these new frontline staff will help to improve response times and provide better care for people in an emergency. We're working hard to reduce ambulance patient handover times at hospitals as well. The Welsh Ambulance Service Trust is making changes to ambulance staff rosters to improve efficiency supporting crews to respond to 999 calls, but demand for emergency services continues to grow. As well as taking action to support emergency care, today I'm announcing an extra £2 million to improve hospital waiting rooms. Now, if you've ever spent time in a hospital waiting room, you'll know how important it is to have somewhere comfortable to sit, access to information and access to food, water, and facilities for children. So this new funding will also be spent on improving wifi and providing phone charging points so that you can keep your friends and your family in the loop. So while we're taking action to cut waiting list times, we're also improving the experience for people who need to visit a hospital this winter. Yn anffodus nid fyrusau ag aviachyddon yn unig, fydd yn cael eicheth ar uniachydros y gael fel eni. We're in the depths of a cost of living crisis, which is having a huge impact on our health and wellbeing, and none are feeling the impact more than are elderly and most vulnerable. In Wales, we're providing help to those who need it most, in this financial year alone, we'll be spending £1.6 billion on targeted support and universal programmes, which put money back into people's pockets. O gyllid bris i dde le bethanoedd i bobl sy'n talu o flansiau, i'n taluad cymorth tannoedd geiaf, mae cefnogaeth ar gael i'ch helpu chi gadw'n gynnes ag i aroswn iaach dros y geiaf. Thank you very much, Diolch yn fawr i chi gyd, and now I'm happy to take questions from journalists. Andy Davis, Channel 4. Thank you, Minister, and in particular, thanks to Jamie. Back in April, Minister, you set a target of no-one in Wales waiting more than a year for their first outpatient appointment by the end of 2022. We're getting very close to the end of 2022 and how many patients are still waiting more than a year for that first outpatient appointment, if I could have the latest figure, please. Thanks very much. We did set out those targets in April, and we are still putting a lot of pressure on health boards to try and make sure that they reach those targets. Obviously, there have been additional pressures on the health service, and one of the issues that we have to bear in mind is when there are urgent cases, you have to put those to the front of the queue. That has impacted on our ability to get through those outpatient appointments as fast as we can. We know that there are still tens of thousands of people waiting for those outpatient appointments, more in some health boards than others, but what we're doing is to try and encourage health boards to not just get through the numbers, but to change the way and to transform the way that they're providing those services, including, for example, doing a lot more remote consultations, making sure there's a lot more day surgery. All of those things are things that we're putting pressure on health boards to do. So, if they did what we asked them to do, if they changed the way that they were, the order in which they were seeing patients, we think we could get very near that target that we set out. Why do successive Welsh Labour Governments appear unable to break the seemingly constant cycle of staff shortages in the Welsh NHS? Well, we've recruited. We've got 54% more people working in the NHS today than we did 20 years ago. We have a lot more people, obviously, requiring the help that they are looking for when it comes to requirements from the health service. So, we have recruited more nurses than ever. We've recruited more doctors than ever. The issue is that the demand continues to increase. We've invested £250 million on training just this year alone, and that is an ongoing commitment. So, we are putting those measures in place. The issue is that we are seeing retention and issues. You can imagine the pressure on people working in the NHS has been intense over the past two years. So, it's not that we're not necessarily training of people. We're actually losing too many people to the service, and that is a challenge for us. Oain. Bwydda gweinidog diolch yn fawr, ac os cair ateb y cwestiynau yma'n gymraeg hefyd fel hynny ddiolchgar. We know that your own scientific advisers model and project ahead what might happen, and they give that information to you. At this stage, which of their graphs worry you the most? Paen o'r graffiau sy'n eich poeni chi foeia? So, the graph that worries me most is the graph that shows that we are going to have quite an intense peak towards December and January. Obviously, that's the time when we expect winter viruses also to be at their peak. So, if we were to see that happening, if we had flu and COVID at the same time, along with this being the time when people traditionally want to take time off, then that obviously would provide a crunch point for us. But that's why we've put very significant planning in place. We've provided a framework for health birds to work towards. But on top of that, we're trying to make sure that we're taking pressure off the system. So, for example, we've undertaken a huge communication campaign trying to get people to use the NHS 111 system. We've opened new urgent primary care centres. We've opened new same-day emergency care centres as well. As I said in my presentation, we've now got, we'll have 100 more ambulance clinicians by then. But the key thing to remember is that the demand continues to increase. So, we would ask people to help us through taking their share of responsibility through getting their vaccination if at all possible because that should reduce the pressure on the system. Mae'r gyda ni gynllun mewn lle ar gyfer geia. Y model drwy'n poeni am fwyaf, yw'r un sy'n dangos lle fyddwn i gweld piwg ti'r dewedd rhagfyr dechrau ionawr. A gwrs, gwrs, un i di balm paratoi ar gyfer hynny. Un i di roi rhagle mewn lle gyda berddeiachid, gofyn i'n gweithio o fewn fframweth. Un i wedi sicrhau y bydd ymgyrch i roi gobor i bobl gallwn i'w defnyddio NHS 111. Mae'n gyda ni'n canolfana urgin i primary care centres newydd. Archyd i'r lle dyw lad. Mae'n gyda ni same-day emergency care centres hefyd. Fel o'n i gweithio, mae'n gyda ni canto bobl. Ni'n gobeithio fyddwn dod i helpu yn y gwasanaeth ambulance erbyn y cyfnod hynny. Mae'r lot o waith paratoi i siwrs wedi cael ei wneud. Diolch yn fawr Gweinidog. Fodd teimlo i'r bobl, i gweithio, fe fydd yw'r amser yn eu gwirioneddhau a'u gweithio. Mae'r frefyllfa o ran rhan o'r gweithio i'r cyfrifatyn. Mae'r bwyl o'r cyfrifatyn gyda'u gweithio mae'r bwyl yw beth o'u cyfrifatyn, yn gwirioneddau i'r bwylio, sydd yn gennym gydaniad o'r fferfyn i wneud chi wneud hyn i bwylio i gweithio gweithio i'r bwylio. Fel ddoch chi'n gwirioneddau, cenderいただio i ffordd o ffrindlun cyfnodd ar gyfer ffrygiadau, ond os gallwch eu ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd. How many more beds and staff precisely will there be in the NHS this winter? What is the plan on that? Joch yn gweithio. Wel, mae'n mynd i'r anodd rhaid i hyn o'r cymdeithasol o âchaf ymgynghori diwrnoddiaeth anodd wedi'u blwyd. Ychwasbwyr ar gweithio'r anodd yn cydal o efoesio. We recognise that we need to upgrade some of these places because the fact is that there will be people waiting for a long time and I think we've got to just bite that bullet and understand the reality of the situation. In terms of numbers of beds, we have been working very closely with local authorities to provide additional support so that we can get a much better flow through the system over the winter months. I can give details on that a bit later, only because actually we've worked these plans have been quite a lot of detail, but I want to make sure that we can deliver on that before making an announcement on precisely how many beds, but I can assure you it is more proportionately than what has been suggested by the UK government that they're going to produce in England. Felly dwi'n meddwl fydd pobl sydd wedi bod aros yn y accident emergency departments yn hapus i weld ein bod ni yn bydd sodd i'n treini, o ran ni'n fyr o wyleu ar gyfer y dyfodol, Un i wedi bod yn gweithio gyda Llywodraeth leol i weld beth yna ni wneud i wel ar flot yn ysbytau, felly beth i ni'n mynd i wneud, un i wedi bod yn paratoi ar hyd yr haf gyda nhw dwi'n bydd sy'n rhoi maennylion ar hyn o bryd, ond allaw i'r ddoch chi bod bys i gyda ni'n mewn golog yn fwy ambitious na bys i gyda nhw yn llwygur. Will. Thank you minister. Last week we saw figures that showed the number of people waiting over a year for a procedure in an appointment sorry in Wales is going up dramatically. Two health boards are under more intensive monitoring because there's no plan for them to balance their books and we saw a woman who waited six days in a chair in Wales as busy as day any. Given it's just October now how is the NHS going to survive this winter? Well as I said we've put a huge amount of preparation into this and I think it's really important that we understand how much the NHS is actually undertaking at the moment. So if you look at the figures for July for example we saw 385,000 consultations take place and that doesn't include the number of people who went to CGPs. So you know the service is seeing more people than it's ever seen before so you know I think the first thing to do is to recognise that the service is working flat out. The issue is you know how do we get those waiting lists down it's important to understand that actually we are putting pressure on the health boards we have already held an orthopedic summit so a meeting where I pulled together all of the heads of the health boards and the people responsible for orthopedic surgery I'll be holding a cancer summit meeting tomorrow to make sure that we improve those rates when it comes to cancer as well. So we recognise there's a lot more to do we are making sure that we've got we're trying to speed up what we're doing in relation to diagnostics but I think we accept that there is much of pressure on the system in fact we've put in 25 million pounds on an ongoing basis to relieve urgent and emergency care and to make sure also that we have a fund 144 million pounds a year that we're working with local government to try and again to improve the flow through our hospitals. All of that should be taking pressure off our system and one of the issues of course is that we still have about over a thousand people in our hospital beds that that need to be out in their communities so trying to reinforce that support within the communities working with local authorities is crucial this winter. Thank you and two year waits are falling but slowly but one year waits are increasing quite quickly just a really simple question are waiting are the amount of people on waiting lists in the NHS in Wales going up or down? So the number of if you look at the waiting list for two years the the rates are going down so we've had four the fourth month in succession now where we've seen the two-year waiting list going down so that's heartening especially when we've got a target to meet by the spring next year. What's happening is we've got more people coming in the demand is still increasing so obviously that then increases the number of people who are on our waiting lists overall that's no different from anywhere else in the United Kingdom so the demand is continuing to increase. The key thing for me is to make sure that we get to the urgent place of people as soon as we can and to get to the longest waiters and that's the the the requirement and the request that we're giving to hospitals at the moment. Adrian. Thank you minister we've been speaking to Val the case that Will mentioned lady who spent six days in a chair hooked up to IV we've been talking to her today I know she'll be watching this what can you tell Val and people who've had some of the more extreme situations about what you're doing to make sure things like that don't happen? I've got to say I was I was horrified to hear Val's story that was absolutely unacceptable and there has been an inspection that they went into the hospital to which which really showed up some of the issues that need to be sorted out. I know that the health board is taking steps to improve the situation but I hope that things like the £2 million that we've announced this morning will help at least to to ensure that while Val is there that she has a more comfortable time now. Obviously there are broader issues that we need to address like the flows through the hospital so that she doesn't she she wouldn't need to to stay for for so long it's clear that she perhaps we shouldn't be cohorting people in the way that that Val was cohorted with with some people who perhaps she shouldn't have been cohorted with so those kind of things I think there are some very simple lessons for the health board to undertake and I'd just like to apologise to Val for the NHS in this instance falling short of where we should have been. Thank you and looking to the bigger picture oh the longer term I suppose are you as a government considering anything along the lines of the the second offer scheme that a previous Welsh government used and is there any reason why you wouldn't use something like that some of your opponents might think it's it's ideological reasons. I mean we're doing some second offers already so if if people could find places to go where they can be seen quicker then obviously within Wales then that offer is possible the problem is that there's not many gaps in the system to allow that offer to to to be a realistic option so there's no ideological problem from my point of view it's just that the system is pretty clogged up in in every part so that's part of the the issue in relation to the second offer. Dan. Thank you minister if I could get these answers in Welsh as well as English that we greatly appreciated there are growing calls for the first minister to apologise for his comments in the chamber last week in relation to the COVID pandemic inquiry a specific one in Wales he said that the world had moved on from the pandemic do you think that he should apologise for those comments and are those words was that you would have used? Look the key thing with this public inquiry is we've got to get to the truth of what happened and what lessons we can learn and I think that what we should be doing is to keep keep an eye on what is the purpose of this exercise and the purpose of this exercise is to get answers for those people in particular who lost loved ones and that's why it was clear that the the first minister has met very regularly with the group of people who have been impacted I've met with that group very regularly and we're all very pleased that they have now got an official and formal status within the public inquiry. If I could ask again before I get that answer in Welsh do you think the first minister should apologise and would you have made those comments? I think what what's important is that the first minister made it clear that in a letter to them that although he couldn't formally support their application for example to to be formal representatives at the inquiry that he believed that they should be and I know he's very pleased that they have that status. Do you think that that happened in Welsh as well? Dwi'n meddwl bod yn glir bod mae purpas y public inquiry e wedi wneud yn siŵr e'n bod ni yn mewn sefydfa lle i'n mynd adegwyrionedd yn cael atebion i bobl sydd wedi coli yn oeiliad yn ystod y pandemig a bod ni'n dysgu gwerthu a dynna beth yw purpas yr inquiry. Mae'n bwysig dwi'n meddwl bod prifonidog wedi wneud yn glir bod isia gweld reilodau hynny sydd wedi coli yn oeiliad yn cael i cynnychioli yn y public inquiry a dwi'n meddwl bod ond oedd y ffilio wneud hwnna'n fferfio'l ond mae'n falch dwi'n meddwl bod wneud wedi cael y status yn anawr. Felly bys'n bwysig nawr yw'n bod ni'n mynd adegwyrionedd dysgu gwerthu a'n bod ni'n gyd yn sicrhau nawr fyddwn ni'n mynd trwy'n pethau. As you referenced there, clearly transparency in government and also answers are very important to the families particularly of those who have lost loved ones to hospital acquired COVID. A well specific inquiry would of course have a look at the good decisions the Welsh government have made and also the bad ones. A simple question minister, have you got anything to hide? No, I think we've been pretty transparent throughout the process. We've tried to be to level with the Welsh public at every step of the way. So I don't think and the first minister has been given very clear instructions to anyone involved in the inquiry that he wants us all to be transparent and open in terms of how we respond to that inquiry because we all need to learn lessons here. We didn't get everything right but I think that the report that came out last week suggested actually if you look at the numbers of people who contracted COVID in Wales compared to England they were significantly lower than they were in England. That means fewer people hospitalised, that means fewer people who had long COVID. All of those things make a difference and that was because of the decisions that were made here in Welsh Government. The real problem of having an independent Welsh specific inquiry is that actually a lot of our decisions were interlinked. The very fact for example that we would have liked to have seen more restrictions in terms of people coming in from different countries when we knew Delta had flared up in India, we didn't have the opportunity and the power to stop people from coming in despite that and it was Delta then that took hold within our nation. So it is important for us to understand the interconnectedness, the fact that we procured vaccines together across the UK. All of those things are things that we didn't do independently and that's why it's important I think that there is an understanding that we were part of the United Kingdom for some aspects but I'm really pleased now that we have a special status within that inquiry where we will be able I hope to drill down into what we did correctly and what we may be able to learn for the future. So dwi'n meddwl bwren bwysig e'n bod ni mewn sefyllfa llenio'n gallu dysgu gwerthu o'r inquiry. Be sy'n glir yw e'n bod ni wedi'i'n neud trwy pethau'n gofyr yn ystod y pandemic, mae'r ffaith bod e'n cyfraddau ni o ran COVID lot i ni snag oedden nhw yn llwydgor, yn dangos e'n bod ni wedi ymwrid mewn ffordd gohanol a ma hwnna wedi'n neud gohanu at i'n myferoid ni. Ond dwi'n meddwl hefyd bod yn bwysig e'n bod ni'n diall, bod na gysylltu'r trwy'n beth o'n neud yma'n hymry a beth o'n digwydd yn llwydgor, felly doedd dim pwergad o'n ei arangrafft i stopi o pob o ragdod i mewn o India, pan o'n i'n gwybod bod delta mewn bodolaeth yn fana, gallu hwnna di arrafi y broses ond ond am hosibl i ni fel Llywodraeth i neud unw beth am hynny, ond rhaid i ni'n cael progymwyd gyda'n gilydd ar angrifft a oran vaccines hefyd. Felly, dwi'n meddwl mae'r peth gorau eu bod ni yn dilyn y UK Public Inquirynau ond bod na gyfleoedd yn yr Inquirynau i edrych mewn maen nhw'n der i beth allwn iddysgu yma'n hymry. Petra Cotcova. It's lovely to see a woman on the day of the girl. Thank you, Petra, for making up for these men. That's amazing. Thank you so much for having ministering. Good morning everyone. I wanted to ask you that vaccination is the best weapon to fight these spikes in COVID numbers. Is the Welsh Government considering bringing back some other measurements, such as the face masks, to measure distracting rules or working from home to help with the COVID numbers this winter? Certainly in terms of, we do see vaccination as our best weapon in this war against COVID, which is why we are urging people to take up that opportunity. There's nothing off the table ever with this COVID pandemic. We don't know what's coming. We may have another variant that will evade our vaccines. Everything is possible. We will make sure we keep an eye on the situation, particularly in our clinical settings when it comes to face coverings. I know that some health boards are already starting to reintroduce face coverings, and we will take those decisions as and when we need to, but nothing is off the table. Thank you for that. Also, the positive interests have been hard on NHS and their mental health of their staff. Is there or will there be something placed, put in place to prevent the staff burnout? Thank you. We already have a very comprehensive programme of support for NHS and care workers in Wales. We've put £1 million into the canopy programme that gives cognitive behavioural therapy to people within the NHS and gives more emotional support. That support is already in place, and I would urge anybody in the NHS who needs that support to take advantage of those opportunities.