Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:19 pm on 10 January 2017.
Thank you for the comments and questions. I think, in terms of trying to deal with those, I’ve answered points about diagnosis, and I’ll look forward to hearing what the consultation says about what we’ve got in the plan, and what is realistic and achievable for us to actually deliver. Part of the point we’re trying to get across is that there’s a need to have a continuing increase and improvement in the diagnosis rate, at a rate that is real and material, and to see that carry on. Now I recognise that many people will urge us to be more ambitious. We need to understand what is really coming through the door, and what is our ability then to actually improve diagnosis rates with different partners acting at different points in time. So, I’m happy to hear what the consultation has to say before we make a final choice—that is, after all, the point of having a genuine consultation.
On your point about staff and staff training, I’d like to deliver what’s in the plan, and learn from that afterwards about how we then have more NHS staff being trained and appropriately equipped. It’s also about staff in health and social care, but in a wider field as well, and that’s why the advice, the guidance, that we launched before Christmas really does make a difference. It was actually a very useful event in actually meeting people in Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr and understanding what they’d already done, the training that had taken place and the improvements in the patient experience that had taken place as a result of that training and provisions being in place.
I recognise the points you make about the use of antipsychotics and where they’re appropriate, and that’s part of the point, and we talk about it in the plan, but I particularly want to deal with your comments about substance misuse. There’s something here about the join-up between the different plans and strategies that we have, recognising we do talk about substance misuse and the plans that we have to improve substance misuse provision to help people to get through that as well, and, in particular, the way that alcohol-related brain damage crosses a number of different areas of activity. We know that there is some work that we’ve been supporting in and around Ogmore in looking at this particular issue in terms of the treatment, the provision and the research, but also Members who were here in the previous Assembly will have heard me discuss some of the work that’s been taking place, for example, in the Liverpool and the Glasgow areas as well. It’s important we continue to learn from other parts of the UK about what is likely to be a continuing challenge. More and more people are going to be coming through doors with alcohol-related challenges, and in this area in particular as well, and lots of those people will actually be more affluent groups of people coming in with alcohol-related challenges in dementia. So, we’ve got to think about how we deal with a range of our different challenges, understand what the current evidence is about what is effective, and then how that impacts obviously on diagnosis, but actually on treatment and provision that we need to have, which will be different in the future to what we have now, as well.