Angela Burns: ...final areas. People with mental health issues smoke significantly more than the general population. What plans do you have in place—because I couldn’t spot it in the delivery plan—to try to educate those people as to the need to give up smoking or to try to cut down on their smoking? Because it is a significantly higher number of people who smoke who have mental health issues. And...
Angela Burns: ..., of the last contributor who gave it her usual amount of great gusto. I am very pleased to participate in this debate, because I think one of the mistakes that we sometimes make is that we think education is linear: children are born, they go to primary school, they skip along to secondary school, they go to FE, HE and pop put the other end and get some kind of job, and then through...
Angela Burns: ...of the tolls on the Severn bridge will come in under secondary legislation, but I also want to see the Barnett formula apply to elements of the confidence and supply agreement, such as health and education. And don’t keep talking to me about pork barrel politics: the Llandeilo bypass comes to mind as an absolute example. Simon Thomas did actually make some very sensible commentary about...
Angela Burns: ...the consequences of being too overweight for people, especially in their later life, and where we’ve got to stop it is with the young children. So, my concern is that, whilst you’re encouraging schools to take up these kinds of options, while you’re encouraging these holiday activities, what I think we need to put into place, and what I was wondering was whether you’ve had many...
Angela Burns: Good afternoon, leader of the house. May I ask you to beseech the Cabinet Secretary for health and social services to bring the statement back to the Chamber on school nurses that was postponed a fortnight ago? School nurses play an important role in Welsh schools, not just dealing with minor injuries, but also offering pastoral advice and general health information. A number of professionals...
Angela Burns: ...the Welsh Government intends to do to ensure that that transition, which is a tricky time for children becoming young people and young people becoming adults in all sorts of different areas, from education through to health services, is particularly looked at and reviewed to help those who need the support of professionals, such as adult services and children and adolescent mental health?
Angela Burns: ...them are starting to walk down a poor mental health route for all sorts of reasons, and there is a lot of evidence out there that if you can catch them young enough, in their teens and in secondary school when they’re going through those kinds of issues, then actually it can help to bring them back before it becomes really hard to start rescuing people. And I’d be really grateful, and...
Angela Burns: ...wonder, as my second point, taking this forward: will the Welsh Government consider other professionals to be part of the social prescribing team—not just health professionals, but people such as school counsellors, or additional leaning needs co-ordinators? Because, as we all know, we’ve got enormous pressures on our mental health services. Children and adolescent mental health...
Angela Burns: ...baccalaureate, where emphasis is placed on individual challenges and where learners must work as a team. I have examples of situations where learners are becoming mentally ill or refusing to attend school because of the stress of coping in that kind of situation. Indeed, I have one constituent whose father went on to suicide watch because he was so worried about his child. But schools are...
Angela Burns: ...quality management in recent years, the need to target localised pockets is essential to improve the inequalities that exist in Wales’s air quality. Simon Thomas made the comment about walking to schools. Well, let’s be really clear about this—Wales is home to some of the most polluted areas in the UK, and if you were a schoolchild walking along the edge of the A472 near Crumlin,...
Angela Burns: ...one: the healthy eating Measure. I remember being an Assembly Member and sitting on the committee that brought that forward. Has it actually made a significant difference to the food quality in schools in Wales? No. My children have just left primary school, and for the years that they were there, as they were in a school that didn’t have its own kitchen and had to have everything...
Angela Burns: ...persons. There is no doubt that ensuring people stay well and maintain a healthy lifestyle is of vital importance to the individual, and, consequently, is of enormous benefit to the public purse. Educating the younger generation is an obvious place to start. If we can prove their physical and mental health and sense of well-being, then we are all alleviating the pressures of the future....
Angela Burns: First Minister, a number of deaths by suicide have occurred in the recent past in schools in my constituency. Now, earlier this year, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom made an announcement that every secondary school in England should be offered mental health first aid training, which teaches people how to identify young people who might be developing a mental health issue, and this...
Angela Burns: ...reduced by one minute and thirty seconds over the last decade, so they’re certainly not on the increase. I do think we should try and normalise activity. It’s very difficult to do, though, when schools are being shut down more and more in terms of play facilities, outdoor facilities et cetera. That’s why I made the point about making it fun, so that those kids enjoy it. It doesn’t...
Angela Burns: ...the delivery plan and listened to what you said, and listened to what Rhun said, actually I’ve just decided I just want to make one comment: why oh why are we not looking at how we do physical education in schools? Because, Minister, I’m going to just quote your words here. You said we’re not successful in delivering these changes. We don’t exercise enough. We do not eat well...
Angela Burns: ...lifestyles and changing their expectations. The other thing we haven’t touched upon is this: a healthy, emotionally resilient individual who at 18, 19 or 20 goes into a job or goes into higher education will actually be somebody who will succeed much better in their life. They will actually have better outcomes and, in turn, will bring up happier, healthier and more resilient children....
Angela Burns: ...—. I think the Deputy Presiding Officer and I were both members of the Children and Young People committee when we looked at budgeting and how budgets can impact on child health and child educational outcomes. I thought that Rhun ap Iorwerth made some very, very valid points on the amendments. Tackling obesity: there’s an example of where, if we had a vision where we understand that...
Angela Burns: ...percentage of the NHS budget focused on women and children, because inequalities in health do not happen by chance—they are determined by where we live, the health of our parents, our income and education. And although children cannot effect these circumstances their development can be seriously affected by these circumstances. According to the Chief Medical Officer for Wales’s report...
Angela Burns: ...abuse from a very, very early age. I’d like to just reinforce the calls made by Sian Gwenllian, and I think others yesterday, for healthy relationships training and counselling and development in schools. If we can train young children, young girls and boys, young men and women to respect and cherish each other, then we will have gone a long way to stopping harassment and abuse of women...
Angela Burns: ...published last year, people from a black or south-Asian background have strokes at a significantly younger age than Caucasian people. Is there anything being done to specifically target healthcare education and preventative measures to those communities? At present, they are being disadvantaged because of the sheer prevalence within their cultural community, or cultural heritage, and it...
