Message from Jan and Kate

Published: 8 March 2021

Another month has flown by, as everyone continues to work tirelessly to protect the people of Wales from the pandemic. The sunshine across Wales at the weekend was very welcome and we hope that you were all able to enjoy it at some point. 

Testing remains a critical part of the COVID-19 response and, as a Board, we are proud of the pivotal role that our laboratories have played since the very beginning. At last week’s Board meeting, we heard from John Boulton and David Heyburn about the impressive work underway on laboratory transformation. The pace and scale of improvements in systems and processes are unparalleled, resulting in major gains in testing turn-around times. We congratulated John, David and the whole microbiology team on their achievements and on plans for further changes. You can view the presentation slides here: https://phw.nhs.wales/about-us/board-and-executive-team/board-papers/board-meetings/2020-2021/25-february-2021/25-february-2021-board-papers/item-3-3-laboratory-transformation-for-covid-19-testing-in-nhs-wales/

We were so proud to watch a recent BBC Wales feature on the Pathogen Genomics Unit (PenGu), dubbed “Wales’ virus variant hunters”. This highlighted the Unit’s ground breaking work on COVID-19 sequencing and we hope that Jess, Sally, Tom and all involved are justly proud of themselves!  If you haven’t seen it you can view it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56029034

The COVID-19 vaccine programme achieved a significant milestone over the weekend - 1,000,000 doses administered in Wales. Put simply, vaccinations save lives and I (Jan) was delighted to have my AZ vaccination in CQ2 last week; Mo, Bev, Helen and Amanda were all on hand to welcome me and answer my questions – I was so busy talking that I didn’t even realise I’d been jabbed! It is said that no one is safe until we are all safe and our in-house team are doing a great job in helping to achieve that goal. 

However, we know that COVID-19-vaccine uptake is not where we need it to be in some communities in Wales. The great work from our VPDP team, highlighting emerging inequalities in coverage, is vital information for the Vaccine Delivery Board and health boards, and will assist them in targeting their messaging.

At last week’s Board meeting, we also heard from Stuart Silcox on our proposed new Integrated Governance Model. Stuart’s presentation can be viewed here (https://phw.nhs.wales/about-us/board-and-executive-team/board-papers/board-meetings/2020-2021/25-february-2021/25-february-2021-board-papers/3-5-1-integrated-governance-model-presentation/) and we welcomed the plans to integrate all aspects of governance work into one overarching approach - this should streamline things and we look forward to hearing more on the outcome of the pilots. 

Finally, we enjoyed seeing how the Enfys network helped the organisation mark LGBT History Month in February.  Our staff networks have a central role to play and Enfys really helped to celebrate diversity; we particularly liked the soft toy auction to raise funds for Glitter Cymru. Thank you to everyone who took part, especially to Sian Bolton, our Enfys ally who made all the soft toys!

We hope that you all stay safe and well and look forward to catching up again next month.

Jan and Kate