Pa gamau y mae Llywodraeth Cymru wedi'u cymryd i gyflawni'r argymhellion yn yr adroddiad ar effaith y ffliw ar unedau gofal critigol Cymru yn ystod gaeaf 2010-11?
Health boards are responsible for ensuring they have adequate critical care provision to meet the needs of their local population and that they can respond to health emergencies such as infectious disease outbreaks.
Critical care is an expensive and valuable resource to be used optimally within the health system. The demand for, and investment in critical care must be balanced against the finite resources available for health and social care in Wales.
However, the Welsh Government is committed to improving critical care capacity in Wales. The report referred to was commissioned to learn lessons from the winter of 2010-11 and is one of a number of pieces of work which have been done over the past few years to help us better understand where to focus effort and investment to improve critical care use and capacity. The report made recommendations ranging from critical care capacity to vaccinations.
Subsequent pieces of work stemming from this report have been undertaken to address the issue of capacity and quality of care, including the development and updating of guidance on escalation arrangements for critical care and the care of people with severe respiratory hypoxia.
The report also informed the development of the delivery plan for the critically ill which set out a range of actions to deliver effective care and most recently the task and finish group on critical care’s report, which was published in July 2019 and the provision of an additional £15m for critical care services in Wales.
As a result of this work, all health boards have in place plans to enable the doubling of critical care capacity at times of particular pressure such as an influenza outbreak. We have seen these plans in action from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when health boards have been able to double critical care their capacity and in some cases triple it to deal with surges in patient numbers.
In terms of other recommendations flowing from the report, ECMO services for Welsh patients have been commissioned by the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee.
Guidance on PPE has been clarified and is regularly updated.
The Welsh Government takes advice on all immunisation matters, including flu, from the UK’s expert Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). Every year, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales issues guidance to NHS Wales on priorities for the forthcoming flu season.
Advice for the 2020-21 season can be found at: WHC (2020) 009 and Appendix A of WHC 2020-013. Public Health Wales publishes a weekly flu activity report during the season which can be found at: http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sites3/page.cfm?orgid=457&pid=34338 which provides information about the level and type of flu circulating in the community.
Vaccination uptake in in Wales in priority groups at greatest risk is among the highest in Europe and has remained stable. Uptake in health workers with direct patient contact has increased steadily from 18.5% in 2010-11 to 58.7% in 2019-20.
Public Health Wales provides health boards with detailed local weekly data on flu vaccine uptake, down to general practice level, which can be used to identify any areas of lower uptake.