I would like to thank the Welsh Conservatives for tabling this debate today and Angela for opening the debate and for her eloquent contribution. 

Unfortunately, mental health still does not get the attention it deserves within our NHS. I welcome the additional £20 million for the mental health ring-fenced budget, which raises the total to £649 million. However, this is still simply not enough.

Having worked with people who have varying degrees of mental health issues, it is harrowing to say the least, and meeting their families—it was very disturbing. Having also worked closely with the Samaritans, I feel humbled by the work they do and the around-the-clock service they provide and also the lives that they save. I accept that the ring-fenced budget is the minimum spend and that the actual spend can be much higher than that, but it’s usually not much higher. The actual spend for the last year for which we have figures, 2015-16: Wales spent £683 million. When you consider that the health budget stands at around £7.5 billion and that mental health issues affect more than a quarter of our population, why are we spending around 10 or 11 per cent on mental health services?

PricewaterhouseCoopers, in their review of the financial ring-fencing arrangements for mental health services in Wales, state that the ring fence allocation is not based on a robust assessment of healthcare needs. The Welsh Government needs to change the ring-fencing arrangements as a matter of urgency.

I won't repeat the veterans' cause because Darren has already said it, but my sentiment is there also.

Waiting times for mental health services are still far too long, particularly for child and adolescent mental health services. Despite a 28-day target, more than half the children referred to CAMHS wait more than four weeks, and some children and young people are waiting more than half a year. One constituent of mine called me as she'd been waiting seven months for an assessment, and upon speaking to a member of the CAMHS team, I was told that the backlog—this was six months ago—was vast and that some people had been waiting almost a year. So, the picture for adult mental health services isn’t much better. Twelve and a half per cent of patients wait up to 56 days and more than 9 per cent of patients wait much longer than that.

We don’t leave injured patients in pain, so why do we tolerate leaving those suffering from mental ill health in mental anguish for months on end? Not only do we have insufficient funding for mental health services, we also have a huge shortage of clinical staff. We have just six consultant psychiatrists per 100,000 patients. There are 10 per 100,000 in Scotland and eight in England. We have huge shortages in general psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry and clinical psychology. No wonder waiting times are so high.

For cognitive behavioural therapy and other talking therapies most patients wait between three to four months to a year, and 15 per cent of patients wait much longer than a year. As a result, there has been an overreliance on prescription medication. According to the latest Gofal snapshot, 80 per cent of patients are offered psychiatric medication, up from around 60 per cent in 2012. Psychiatric medication, while beneficial to many, should not be seen as a cure-all. There can be horrendous side effects from antidepressants and antipsychotics, ranging from decreased alertness to suicidal feelings.

Unfortunately, a combination of overworked GPs and long waiting lists for psychological therapies is leaving people with no alternative but to take drugs that could leave them feeling much worse. This is not what was envisaged by the Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010 and is possibly contributing to our suicide rates, which result in three times as many deaths as road traffic accidents. We are letting down our constituents, of whom one in four suffer from mental health issues.

I urge all Members to support the motion, together with the Plaid Cymru amendment, and urge the Welsh Government to take urgent action to improve mental health provision for all in Wales.