WQ80354 (e) Tabled on 21/05/2020

Will the Minister confirm how many people, defined as ‘extremely vulnerable’ in the Welsh Government’s Guidance on Shielding and Protecting on Medical Grounds, and asked to shield at home for 12 weeks, are within each of the eight groups, and the five sub-groups of specific cancers., listed in Point 2?

Answered by Minister for Health and Social Services | Answered on 05/06/2020

Since the exercise to protect people who are classified as extremely vulnerable began, 130,000 people have been identified by searching NHS databases and by clinicians in both primary and secondary care against the specified clinical criteria agreed by the four chief medical officers in the UK.  

I do not intend to provide detailed breakdowns of the shielded group due to the complexity of the process, not least because the criteria and data are regularly refined. 

I can confirm the Cancer Network Information System Cymru (CaNISC) is one of the NHS databases which is regularly searched as part of this exercise to ensure all relevant cancer patients are added to the shielding group.