Likely patients caught Covid-19 in Welsh hospitals, says First Minister

Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford has said it is likely patients contracted Covid-19 while in Welsh hospitals.

Yesterday, Welsh Government said it has not been able to keep a record of the number of cases of in-hospital transmissions.

In April, Caerphilly Observer reported a number of incidents where people had entered the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport without symptoms of Covid-19, before eventually testing positive in hospital.

Several clinicians in Wales have said it is highly likely in-hospital transmissions have occurred.

Today, speaking at the Welsh Government’s daily press briefing, Mr Drakeford agreed with that assessment.

He said: “I think that is likely to have happened, but I do know that in all health care settings enormous efforts are made by staff to do all they can to prevent that happening.

“Health care acquired infections have sadly long been a feature of how the health service operates.

“When you bring a lot of people together in one building with a lot of illnesses, even when the system works really hard and carefully to try and stop illnesses spreading, it has proved impossible to stop it completely.”

The admission will lead to further scrutiny of whether PPE guidance and infection control was robust enough in hospitals during the initial weeks of the outbreak.

Up until the week beginning Monday, April 13 – three weeks after the UK went into lockdown – UK-wide health guidance did not require hospital staff to wear PPE when in contact with patients not suspected of having Covid-19.

The late change in guidance prompted concerns that asymptomatic members of NHS staff may have been transmitting Covid-19 to patients within hospitals, as they were not wearing PPE.

Without testing of asymptomatic cases in hospitals at the time, there is also a concern that the virus was then spread to care homes as asymptomatic patients were discharged.

When asked whether families will ever know exactly how their loved ones contracted the virus, the First Minister said all families should be able to discuss what happened with their loved one directly with the health service that cared for them.

He added: “They should be able to have those conversations with clinicians and get the answers they need in order to understand what happened in their individual cases.

“I would then hope they would gain comfort by having those conversation with the people on the ground who dealt with them and their loved ones.”