LESSONS have been learnt in how to protect care homes and hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic, the First Minister has said.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said that there are only three ways in which coronavirus can get into a care home and that is when a resident brings it in, a staff member or a visitor.

In a special interview, he told the Leader that it was important to remember that six out of 10 care homes in Wales still have not reported a single positive case, however lessons have been learnt.

He said: “One of the things we have learnt is that there are quite a lot of people who go from care home to care home, that would be the normal way of doing it. A GP may have three or four care homes on their list or a district nurse.

“What we’ve learnt is that this is a bad idea, when staff move there is a risk they take the virus with them, so we are working very hard with care homes to minimise the extent to which people move between different care home settings.

“That’s one important way of doing it this time around. Secondly, what we’ve learnt is that size matters here.

“The six out of ten that haven’t had any are small care homes and don’t have people who need nursing care.

“Places where coronavirus really hit has been in places that have over 50 beds, it’s the bigger end of care homes and where there’s nursing care needed as well.”

The First Minister said extra safe-guarding measures have been put in place in those care homes to minimise the risk to residents and staff.

Mr Drakeford also said measures have been introduced to make hospitals safer, some of which include separating into red zones and green zones and having staff not mix between those zones.

He added that there will be stronger testing regimes at the front door to hospitals to get quicker results on whether someone is positive.

Mr Drakeford went on to say that they are still learning on the experience at the Maelor hospital over the summer when there was an outbreak and learning what was in place and what was effective.

He added: “The system has learnt a lot and we are very committed to putting things that weren’t right last time, right now.”