5. Statement by the Minister for Mental Health and Early Years: Improving mental health in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:02 pm on 14 May 2024.

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Photo of Jayne Bryant Jayne Bryant Labour 5:02, 14 May 2024

Diolch, Mabon, and thank you very much as well. I’m really looking forward to working with you in this brief, so thank you for your welcome as well. Diolch yn fawr.

On your points around data and the mental health programme, we have provided £2.2 million to establish a strategic mental health programme within the NHS Wales Executive, which will drive improvements in the quality, safety and performance of services, and reduce variation in services. Within the strategy, we’re clear that to deliver both effective and person-centred services, we need to drive improvements within our care and treatment planning, and this will be a key focus of the strategic programme for mental health.

You mentioned the first 1,000 days and the importance of that, and thank you for raising that and also the important issue around perinatal mental health. I know that you have a keen interest in that, and I appreciate you acknowledging the work that’s gone ahead on specialist perinatal mental health and the progress that’s been made on that. We remain committed to improving perinatal mental health services. This is a priority area for action within the refreshed 'Together for Mental Health' delivery plan. Since 2015, we’ve invested in specialist perinatal mental health. There are now services in every health board area and over £3 million of mental health service improvement funding is supporting these services annually. Health boards are also working towards meeting the relevant Royal College of Psychiatrists' quality standards, and we have made service improvement funding available in order to support that. The national clinical lead for perinatal mental health is leading the national network’s work programme. This includes the development of a fully integrated care pathway and supporting health boards to work towards meeting the Royal College of Psychiatrists' quality standards. So, there is work going on in that area and we will continue to do that.

On the point you made around the 60-plus active leisure scheme, promoting physical activity amongst older people is facilitated through that scheme. Our 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' delivery plan commits to the scheme via an investment of £500,000 per annum, and we also provide that transformation programme funding of over £500,000 across 2022-23, 2023-24 to the Football Association of Wales for the Fit Fans programme, which I have already mentioned. So, there is a lot of work going on in this area, but we will continue to progress that.