6. Will the Cabinet Secretary outline how the Welsh Government is using emerging assistive technology in social care? (OAQ51105)

Health Technology Wales has a remit to assess emerging technologies across health and social care and make recommendations for their adoption. Our efficiency through technology and integrated care funds support the rapid evaluation and upscale of new and emerging technologies within real-world care settings.

Thank you for that. There are new developments, as the Minister will know, in wearable technology to support older people at home; tools to help manage medicine, to help use kitchen equipment and to alert carers; and voice-recognition technology and other developments. There is even robotic technology in Japan that helps with routine physical tasks at home. This can help people living supported at home and managing increasing frailty without going into residential care. This is also an example of innovation in the foundational economy, which is an opportunity to create employment as well. In light of this, would she support the creation of a care technology fund to encourage investment in Welsh care technology ideas to the benefit of our residents, whether they require care or work?

I thank you very much for that question and the recognition of the huge range of assistive technologies that there are, and the sheer potential of them in terms of improving the care that we offer people. There are already established funding mechanisms in place and established approaches with regard to the adoption and expansion of the use of assistive technologies. For example, our digital health and care strategy for Wales provides a road map for encouraging the greater use of technology to transform our health and social care services and achieve better outcomes for people. And our technology-enabled care programme is also developing a national approach to scaling up the use of telehealth and telecare in Wales, and that programme works really closely with health and social care colleagues within Welsh Government to identify the priorities and the most effective and consistent uses that we could put these new technologies to.

In terms of funding, we already have an efficiency through technology programme, and that’s a £10 million fund to support the assessment and rapid development and adoption of new technologies across health and social care. And also, of course, our integrated care fund offers huge opportunities to use these new technologies to keep people at home, rather than having unnecessary admissions to hospital, and obviously to bring people home more quickly from hospital as well. We’ve made £60 million of funding available across Wales for the ICF in this year, and there are some examples in our area of Western Bay where this funding has been used. For example, the region has just received funding for the purchase of Just Checking assistive technology kits, and they’ll be used in homes for supported living tenancies for people with learning disabilities. And so the service will use these kits to measure the support that individuals will require in their initial setting-up period, and then they can use these kits to target hours of support, both during the day and the night, at the correct level for the individual concerned.

You just mentioned Western Bay there, and I’m sure you’re aware that the Swansea bay city deal is very well placed to nurture companies who want to actually develop these tech interventions for reablement and other social care, particularly at home. The opportunity has already been spotted. I’m just wondering, then, what conversations you might have had with the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy and Infrastructure to ensure that any new companies showing an interest in this area of activity are looking favourably on the Swansea bay city deal area, rather than elsewhere. I think it would be of great comfort to us all to know that isn’t just an opportunity to benefit patients, but actually staff and the economy as well. Thank you.

I thank you very much for that question, and I have certainly had discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for the economy on the fact that we have identified social care as a sector of national strategic importance. And, of course, you will have seen in ‘Prosperity for All’ that it is one of our key cross-cutting themes alongside housing, which also plays into this kind of area as well. So, I’ll certainly have that specific discussion on the potential for the city deal. I think that is an exciting proposition with exciting potential there as well, so I think it’s something perhaps we could work to have a meeting on together.