It showed us that older people are, as has been mentioned in the opening remarks, particularly vulnerable to loneliness and isolation, and I'll come back to that in a moment. We all see that, by the way, as individual Assembly Members and in friends and neighbours and within our own communities, so I'll come back to that. We know from the assessment that there are increasing numbers of older people with dementia, and this is forecast to rise. There is increasing frailty, increasing ill-health. We see this—older people with complex needs and often with complex comorbidity issues as well. More falls—simple things like that can have a major impact on the quality of life of an individual if they're not provided with the right support and equipment to avoid falls within the home. How do you live independently without that? We know that older people need to be supported to live independently in their own homes, that older people with more complex needs need to be supported in appropriate residential and nursing care as well and that older people are more likely to develop sight and hearing loss and so on and so on. These are the challenges—some of the challenges.

We are, as a Welsh Government, committed to tackling these challenges and securing older people's rights and ensuring dignity in retirement and the security of older people. I want to turn to some of the ways that we are already doing that before we look at the ways that we can go forward in the future. Through our existing legislation, the rights of older people are embedded in the Social Services and Well-Being (Wales) Act 2014, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016. Members here took part in those debates, and the rights of older people are embedded within all that legislation, and of course what that means for the public body and the persons affected by that legislation. So, our social services Act requires any person exercising functions under the Act to have due regard to the United Nations principles for older persons and to demonstrate that it has complied with the principles in a meaningful way. Now, there are 18 of those principles, but the five themes are: independence, participation, self-fulfilment, care and dignity. This legislation is designed to ensure that well-being, the rights and the entitlements are at the centre of key policies and plans and is described in a way that reflects older people's voices and the issues that matter to them.

But the Welsh Government already demonstrates a real commitment to support, promote and protect the rights of older people, so the existing older people's rights declaration sends a clear message to statutory bodies and to service providers in Wales, as well as to older people themselves, about the expectation around the provision of support and services to allow older people to lead independent and full lives. Through that declaration, older people are supported to understand the rights that apply to them, how to access their rights more effectively and how they relate to current law and to equality and human rights law as well. And we worked closely with the older people's commissioner's office to develop that declaration. Wales was the first country in the UK to establish the older people's commissioner. We attach, as I've said, great importance to this role and its independence. This is reflected in our commitment to the Ageing Well approach, which is delivered in partnership with the Older People's Commissioner for Wales. If you look at that Ageing Well in Wales programme, it brings together individuals, communities, public, private and voluntary sectors to develop and promote innovative and practical ways to make Wales a nation of age-friendly communities.

That issue of an age-friendly community is at the centre of the national strategy for older people. In light of the recent legislation that I've referred to, we've committed to update the strategy to ensure that it remains relevant and ambitious to drive the improvements in well-being for older people in Wales.